Responsorial Psalm

[kern]

Now that I have gotten home from college, I have been going to a local church. I've only been there twice, but they haven't used the psalm from the missal either time. I wasn't aware that individual churches had the right to change the psalms. Comments?

-Chris

 

[Avila]

The church that I entered The Church in did that all the time. I found it to be quite annoying, especially because they often used some inadequate OCP attempt at a hokey "feely good" Psalm. This parish used OCP anyway, so I don't know why they had to disgrace the Psalm even further...

 

[fragmentsofdreams]

I'm pretty sure that it is licit, but I haven't read the relevent documents to be sure.

 

[pax]

I would highly doubt the licety of such a practice for no one can change any part of the liturgy "even if he be Priest."

 

[nyj]

Originally posted by pax
I would highly doubt the licety of such a practice for no one can change any part of the liturgy "even if he be Priest."

Pax,

There is a difference between taking out the Psalm entirely and changing which Psalm is used. Our parish priest, who happens to be in charge of the Office of Worship and Spiritual Life (which sees to the orthodoxy of the liturgical practice within the Archdiocese), never uses the Psalm which attends the readings for each week. Rather our Psalms are chosen and sung as appropriate for the particular week but do not necessarily coincide with the proscribed canon.

I would be very loathe to question any priests authority to make such changes without fulling understanding Canon Law (as you have done) and since it is commonplace, I would imagine that the priests do have authority to render this change.

As a matter of fact, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal states:

61 After the first reading comes the responsorial psalm, which is an integral part of the liturgy of the word and holds great liturgical and pastoral importance, because it promotes meditation on the Word of God.

The responsorial psalm should correspond to each reading and should customarily be taken from the Lectionary.

So as you see, the Church does allow an appropriate Psalm to be used in place of the one that is found in each cycle of the lectionary.

 

[pax]

You are correct, I apologize for my error.