Hi,
I have a little breviary called Shorter Christian Prayer that I’d like to start using. But, I really can’t figure out where I am in the cycle because the page outline the cycle years ends at 2005. Can someone here tell me where we are in the cycle as of today 9/19/2007?
God Bless,
Teresa
The main thing you need to keep an eye on is the Four Week Psalter, tells you which psalms to be praying each day.
Now this is the 24th week of Ordinary Time (normally your Church Bulletin will tell you each week what ‘time’ of year it is).
If you look up the section for Sundays in Ordinary time the heading should be something like ‘24th Sunday’ (Sunday 24 in my case, I use a slightly different book). Near it should be something like ‘Psalter week 4’.
That tells you that for the week beginning on Sunday (this week) we’re praying the Psalms (and all the responses and prayers as well, for the most part) that are set out for week 4 of the Psalter. So you’ll refer to Wednesday of Week 4 for your morning, evening (and night?) prayer. Not sure if your book also has the Office of Readings, mine doesn’t.
Once you’ve finished week 4 you’ll start from the beginning of week 1 again. Basically this repeats itself until the beginning of Advent.
The only exceptions are the special feast days that occur between now and then. These, along with their dates and whatever special scripture, prayers or antiphons are set out for them, will probably be listed in their own separate section. You simply substitute the special sections given for whatever is ordinarily prescribed for that day and the rest remains the same.
I believe on feastdays the Psalms from Sunday Week 1 are always used, though I may be wrong. The book itself may indicate whether this is the case.
Hope this helps, let us know how you’re going!
