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Views from the Choir Loft

The Responsorial Psalm: What You Never Knew!

Guest Author · September 1, 2015

347 Replace Psalter ERE’S SOMETHING I bet you never realized: the Ordinary Form rubrics allow the responsorial psalm found in the Lectionary to be replaced by any other psalm. If this coming Sunday has psalm 25, you can replace it with psalm 56. If the following Sunday has psalm 68, you can replace it with psalm 104. Here’s the proof:

“In the Dioceses of the United States of America, instead of the Psalm assigned in the Lectionary, there may be sung … an antiphon and Psalm from another collection of Psalms and antiphons—including Psalms arranged in metrical form—providing that they have been approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop.”

—§61d of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal

I WANTED TO MAKE ABSOLUTELY SURE, so I recently wrote to the USCCB. Here’s what they said (with their emphasis):

It seems pretty clear to me: “instead of the Psalm assigned…”. It appears that, yes, an entirely different Psalm can be chosen, so long as it comes from an approved source.

As someone who has labored—with very little success—to introduce the propers at my parish, this whole thing came as quite a shock. Why does almost every Catholic parish replace the propers each Sunday, but never the Responsorial Psalm? Whenever I try to promote the propers, people inevitably say, “The GIRM allows us to replace the propers; it’s called fourth option.” Yet, the GIRM also allows us to replace the Responsorial Psalm…

I was prepared to present my theory about why this is, before I submitted this guest blog. I was going to say that the liturgical books only give certain options, and not others. I was going to say something like, “Why isn’t there a book which provides the traditional Gradual psalm as an option? What about that?” However, before posting, the editor at CCW pointed out that the Jogues Missal does provide the Gradual as an option, although somehow my eyes never noticed this before:

349 Gradual


It turns out the Gradual is specifically listed by the GIRM as an option; sometimes it’s listed as 1st option, while other documents place it as 2nd, behind the Lectionary psalm. Perhaps I’m the only one who never knew about all this stuff…

If so, feel free to ignore my article!   🙂


We hope you enjoyed this guest article by J. Michael Ney.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Responsorial Psalm Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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Quick Thoughts

19 May 2022 • “Trochee Trouble”

I’m still trying to decide how to visually present the “pure” Editio Vaticana scores, using what is (technically) the official rhythm of the Church. You can download my latest attempt, for this coming Sunday. Notice the “trochee trouble” as well as the old issue of neumes before the quilisma.

—Jeff Ostrowski
16 May 2022 • Harmonized Chant?

This year’s upcoming Sacred Music Symposium will demonstrate several ways to sing the CREDO at Mass. This is because—for many parishes—to sing a full-length polyphonic CREDO by Victoria or Palestrina is out of the question. Therefore, we show options that are halfway between plainsong and polyphony. You can hear my choir rehearsing a section that sounds like harmonized plainsong.

—Jeff Ostrowski
14 May 2022 • “Pure” Vatican Edition

As readers know, my choir has been singing from the “pure” Editio Vaticana. That is to say, the official rhythm which—technically—is the only rhythm allowed by the Church. I haven’t figured out how I want the scores to look, so in the meantime we’ve been using temporary scores that look like this. Stay tuned!

—Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

Amid all these old liturgical books, I find that I am happy and at ease; I feel at home.

— Dom André Mocquereau (1884)

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