Some of our readers, our neighbors and retreatants, like to organize their prayer according to the schedule of psalms we use for our worship. It’s possible to do this just using your Bible but Lauds presents a real challenge: the Liturgical form of the canticles can skip a few (or more) verses and that can be very clumsy in practice.
If you have the capability to receive a Microsoft Word attachment and would like these Canticles for your own use, just contact me through the comment option on this post and I’ll send you the document of all seven Canticles.
Just a word on the Canticles: St. Benedict mentions them by name, not chapter and verse. That convenience–Scripture organized by chapter and verse–would not be introduced until the fourteenth century. But the Canticles that monasteries have used since the middle ages are identifiable from medieval manuscripts. The exception here is the Canticle from Deuteronomy, the present form of which reflects the sensibility of the liturgical reforms of Vatican II. We here follow the form used by the Prayer of Christians. St. Benedict employed the entire Canticle which goes on for several pages. This version remains the longest of the Canticles offered but is much shorter than what had been used in the old Latin Office.
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