Alright, this post is more for my reference than anything else. I.e., this is a collection of a few random liturgical facts that are more necessary than important.

The Daily Office lectionary contained in the ’79 BCP has a 7-week psalm cycle.

The cycle begins on a Sunday when the psalms are 146, 147 (Morning) and 111, 112, 113 (Evening).

The cycle moves as follows:

• It begins on the Week of 1 Advent.
• It’s interrupted on the weekdays of Advent 4; Sunday is normal but the rest of the week is not. Some of the normal psalms of that course appear, but other ones are introduced not normally seen in this portion.
• The numbered days after Christmas don’t follow the scheme either, but the psalms appointed for the First and Second Sundays after Christmas do replicate the next two Sundays from the psalm cycle.  (Actually, the evening of 2nd Chr doesn’t though the others do.)
• The cycle begins anew with the Week of 1 Epiphany and moves through its completion at the end of  the Week of 7 Epiphany. Because it’s moving through Ordinary time with no intervening special events, this is the first full repetition of the unbroken cycle provided that we get to the Week of 7 Epiphany.
• The cycle begins anew with the Week of 8 Epiphany. Note that it continues into the next printed week—the Week of Last Epiphany. Thus, even though the cycle is printed in continuous form, in years when Easter falls early—and thus when there are fewer weeks of Epiphany, both the end of the previous cycle and the beginning of this next one will be truncated in actual use.
• Ash Wednesday receives proper psalms but other than that, the cycle rolls into Lent with no change.
• Thursday of Lent 4 has a break in the cycle: 69 and 73 replace the two halves of 105, presumably because 105 ends with “Halleluiah.”
• The Monday of Lent 5 likewise places 31 and 35 rather than the two halves of 106. Where normally we’d expect 140 & 142 on Friday Morning of Lent 5, they’ve been shifted to the evening before replacing 134 & 135. Ps 22 takes their place on Friday morning. The Eve of Palm Sunday (Saturday of Lent 5) ends the cycle with Pss 42, 43 replacing the usual 104.
• Palm Sunday morning receives 24, 29—a standard Sunday morning set—but the rest of Holy Week and Easter 1 are proper.
• The cycle begins anew with the Week of 2 Easter.
• There is a minor interruption as the Eve and Day of the Ascension receive proper psalms.
•  Both the Eve and Day of Pentecost follow the cycle, thus receiving standard Sunday cyclic psalms but not proper psalms.
• At this point we do a little dance… Pentecost begins the last week of the cycle. The next printed day is the Eve and Day of Trinity but we’re going to ignore them for just a minute. The next day logically after Pentecost (pretending that Easter falls at its earliest point) are the week days of Proper 1 (recall that neither Propers 1 nor 2 have Sundays as in the years when these readings are used, Pentecost and Trinity would take the place of their Sundays). The psalms for the last week of the cycle are used to fill in the weekdays of Proper 1. Flipping back now to the printed order we see that Trinity receives the initial set and the weekdays for Proper 2 pick up the successive order meaning that…
•    The cycle begins anew with Trinity Sunday & Proper 2 and runs through the Week of Proper 8. As with the end of the Time after Epiphany, though, the end of the previous cycle and the beginning of this cycle will likely be truncated in use depending on where Easter falls.
• The cycle begins anew with Proper 9 and runs through the Week of Proper 15. Depending on how the fall of Easter has affected things, this may be the first full cycle that you experience in some years!
• The cycle begins anew with Proper 16 and runs through the Week of Proper 22.
• The cycle begins anew with Proper 23 and finishes on the last day of the liturgical year on the Saturday of Proper 29.

One of the psalms every Wednesday is a part of Ps 119. It’s cut into seven portions which are read, alternating between morning and evening, through the body of the cycle.

The cycle repeats, either partially or completely, 8 times. The last three of each year are guaranteed to be complete (except, of course, for the psalms potentially skipped as detailed in the previous post…).

While it’s an interesting way to do it, I’d still rather stick with Cranmer’s 30 day scheme.

I’m proof-reading lectionary tables again.  I must say it’s one of the worst parts of maintaining an electronic breviary…

However, I do have interesting things pass before my eyes. At the moment, I’m considering the pieces of the psalter that the ’79 BCP doesn’t want you to hear in public worship. The way I’m assessing this, is calling out all of the passages that are marked as optional and therefore skippable.

Parts of Psalms

• Ps 21:8-14: “8   Your hand will lay hold upon all your enemies; *
  your right hand will seize all those who hate you.
  9     You will make them like a fiery furnace *
  at the time of your appearing, O LORD;
  10     You will swallow them up in your wrath, *
  and fire shall consume them.
  11     You will destroy their offspring from the land *
  and their descendants from among the peoples of the earth.
  12     Though they intend evil against you
  and devise wicked schemes, *
  yet they shall not prevail.
  13     For you will put them to flight *
  and aim your arrows at them.
  14     Be exalted, O LORD, in your might; *
  we will sing and praise your power.”
• Ps 110:6-7: “6     He will heap high the corpses; *
  he will smash heads over the wide earth.
  7     He will drink from the brook beside the road; *
  therefore he will lift high his head.”
• Ps 63:9-11: “9     May those who seek my life to destroy it *
  go down into the depths of the earth;
  10     Let them fall upon the edge of the sword, *
  and let them be food for jackals.
  11     But the king will rejoice in God;
  all those who swear by him will be glad; *
  for the mouth of those who speak lies shall be stopped.”
• Ps 139:18-23: “18     Oh, that you would slay the wicked, O God! *
  You that thirst for blood, depart from me.
  19     They speak despitefully against you; *
  your enemies take your Name in vain.
  20     Do I not hate those, O LORD, who hate you? *
  and do I not loathe those who rise up against you?
  21     I hate them with a perfect hatred; *
  they have become my own enemies.
  22     Search me out, O God, and know my heart; *
  try me and know my restless thoughts.
  23     Look well whether there be any wickedness in me *
  and lead me in the way that is everlasting.”
• Ps 68:21-23: “21     God shall crush the heads of his enemies, *
  and the hairy scalp of those who go on still in their wickedness.
  22     The Lord has said, “I will bring them back from Bashan; *
  I will bring them back from the depths of the sea;
  23     That your foot may be dipped in blood, *
  the tongues of your dogs in the blood of your enemies.””
• Ps 69:24-30: “24     Let the table before them be a trap *
  and their sacred feasts a snare.
  25     Let their eyes be darkened, that they may not see, *
  and give them continual trembling in their loins.
  26     Pour out your indignation upon them, *
  and let the fierceness of your anger overtake them.
  27     Let their camp be desolate, *
  and let there be none to dwell in their tents.
  28     For they persecute him whom you have stricken *
  and add to the pain of those whom you have pierced.
  29     Lay to their charge guilt upon guilt, *
  and let them not receive your vindication.
  30     Let them be wiped out of the book of the living *
  and not be written among the righteous.”
• Ps 109:5-19: “5     Set a wicked man against him, *
  and let an accuser stand at his right hand.
  6     When he is judged, let him be found guilty, *
  and let his appeal be in vain.
  7     Let his days be few, *
  and let another take his office.
  8     Let his children be fatherless, *
  and his wife become a widow.
  9     Let his children be waifs and beggars; *
  let them be driven from the ruins of their homes.
  10     Let the creditor seize everything he has; *
  let strangers plunder his gains.
  11     Let there be no one to show him kindness, *
  and none to pity his fatherless children.
  12     Let his descendants be destroyed, *
  and his name be blotted out in the next generation.
  13     Let the wickedness of his fathers be remembered before the LORD, *
  and his mother’s sin not be blotted out;
  14     Let their sin be always before the LORD; *
  but let him root out their names from the earth;
  15     Because he did not remember to show mercy, *
  but persecuted the poor and needy
  and sought to kill the brokenhearted.
  16     He loved cursing,let it come upon him; *
  he took no delight in blessing,
  let it depart from him.
  17     He put on cursing like a garment, *
  let it soak into his body like water
  and into his bones like oil;
  18     Let it be to him like the cloak which he wraps around himself, *
  and like the belt that he wears continually.
  19     Let this be the recompense from the LORD to my accusers, *
  and to those who speak evil against me.”
• Ps 108:7-13: “7     God spoke from his holy place and said, *
  “I will exult and parcel out Shechem;
  I will divide the valley of Succoth.
  8     Gilead is mine and Manasseh is mine; *
  Ephraim is my helmet and Judah my scepter.
  9     Moab is my washbasin,
  on Edom I throw down my sandal to claim it, *
  and over Philistia will I shout in triumph.”
  10     Who will lead me into the strong city? *
  who will bring me into Edom?
  11     Have you not cast us off, O God? *
  you no longer go out, O God, with our armies.
  12     Grant us your help against the enemy, *
  for vain is the help of man.
  13     With God we will do valiant deeds, *
  and he shall tread our enemies under foot.”
• Ps 143:12: “12     Of your goodness, destroy my enemies
  and bring all my foes to naught, *
  for truly I am your servant.”
• Ps 137:7-9: “7     Remember the day of Jerusalem, O LORD,
  against the people of Edom, *
  who said, “Down with it! down with it!
  even to the ground!”
  8     O Daughter of Babylon, doomed to destruction, *
  happy the one who pays you back
  for what you have done to us!
  9     Happy shall he be who takes your little ones, *
  and dashes them against the rock!”

Whole Psalms

• Ps 53
• Ps 59
• Ps 58
• Ps 60
• Ps 70
• Ps 79
• Ps 83
• Ps 100 (ok—this is understandable if the Jubilate is used as the Invitatory)
• Ps 95 (I suppose here the concern is over-repetition of the Venite is the usual Invitatory)
• Ps 120
• Ps 127
• Ps 133

Funny true story on one of these… On one of my first nursing home visits as a pastoral intern, the senior pastor and I went to one of the elderly women of the congregation. The pastor introduced me to her and said, “Oh, this guy’s great, you’ll love hearing him read you the psalms. Let’s see, your favorite is Ps 109, right? Derek–why don’t you read that one for her. ”

So I did as I was told. That’s the one with that terrific cursing section in it and I remember thinking to myself as I was reading it: “Man, it sounds like we’ve got some *serious* end-of-life issues to deal with here around forgiveness!”

When I finished, there was a long pause, and she tactfully said, “Ah, I don’t actually think that was it…” as my senior pastor attempted to sink through the floor in embarrassment.