Memorials in the LOTH

[AngelusDomini]

Yesterday was the memorial of St Leo the Great and the psalms and canticle for Morning Prayer on universalis were of the day. Today is the memorial of St Martin of Tours; the psalms and canticle for Morning Prayer was of Sunday Week One. Both are obligatory memorials so why does one have ‘of the day’ and the other ‘of Sunday Week One’? Hope someone may be able to answer as it has confused me all day. (Just in case it makes a difference I’m in the UK and using the Universalis app for the LOTH.)

As I use the Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham for Evening Prayer I can find the proper readings in the Ordo but I’d like to know if there’s any way of telling which psalms and canticle to use so as to provide continuity with the LOTH. Thanks for any help you can give.

 

[porthos11]

Yesterday was the memorial of St Leo the Great and the psalms and canticle for Morning Prayer on universalis were of the day. Today is the memorial of St Martin of Tours; the psalms and canticle for Morning Prayer was of Sunday Week One. Both are obligatory memorials so why does one have ‘of the day’ and the other ‘of Sunday Week One’? Hope someone may be able to answer as it has confused me all day. (Just in case it makes a difference I’m in the UK and using the Universalis app for the LOTH.)

As I use the Customary of Our Lady of Walsingham for Evening Prayer I can find the proper readings in the Ordo but I’d like to know if there’s any way of telling which psalms and canticle to use so as to provide continuity with the LOTH. Thanks for any help you can give.

St. Martin of Tours is a bit of an oddity among the memorials as it has proper Psalms and Antiphons, probably because of its antiquity. Morning Prayer will take its Psalms from Sunday Week I and Evening Prayer will take its Psalms from the Common of Pastors.

The rubrics for Memorials state that for Morning and Evening Prayer, the Psalms, Canticles and their antiphons are taken from the current weekday, unless there are proper Psalms and antiphons. St. Martin is one of the latter.

 

[AngelusDomini]

Thanks. I have been searching through my copy of the LOTH and came across the rubric you quoted too. I guess it is just an oddity, a throwback to an earlier time maybe.

Thank God for apps and sites such as divineoffice / universalis (and modern technology) or I would be all over the place!

 

[drforjc]

Our Lady of Sorrows on 15 September is much the same.

 

[Todd977]

Just a guess but perhaps the Sunday Week I Morning Prayer psalms were chosen because they have something in common with Office of Readings for St. Martin; the first psalm (Psalm 63) of the Sunday Morning Prayer psalms mentions a “bed” and the second reading in the Office of Readings, which describes St. Martin’s final days, also mentions a “bed,” his death-bed.

 

[Todd977]

I have another guess that occurred to me after saying today’s Morning Prayer for St. Josaphat, bishop and martyr. In the Evening Prayer for St Martin, the Antiphon for the Canticle of Mary says in part “…though he did not die a martyr’s death, this holy confessor won the martyr’s palm.” Perhaps this is why the Morning Prayer psalms common for one martyr (Morning Prayer psalms for Sunday, Week I) are used for St. Martin.

 

[OraLabora]

Memorials with proper antiphons and which use the Sunday psalmody for Lauds are memorials with an ancient tradition of these antiphons that the Church wanted to preserve. They are also usually memorials that were downgraded from feasts when the liturgical year was renewed.

There are actually quite a number of them.

 

[porthos11]

I have another guess that occurred to me after saying today’s Morning Prayer for St. Josaphat, bishop and martyr. In the Evening Prayer for St Martin, the Antiphon for the Canticle of Mary says in part “…though he did not die a martyr’s death, this holy confessor won the martyr’s palm.” Perhaps this is why the Morning Prayer psalms common for one martyr (Morning Prayer psalms for Sunday, Week I) are used for St. Martin.

All Morning Prayer psalms from all Commons (BVM, Apostles, Dedication of a Church, Martyrs, Pastors, Virgins, Holy Men, Holy Women) are from Sunday, Week I. It has nothing to do specifically with martyrdom.