OR SUNDAYS in Ordinary Time, the 1970 LECTIONARY doesn’t indicate specific verses for the ALLELUIA. Instead, it sends the reader to this generic page for each Sunday’s Gospel Acclamation. I don’t understand why this decision was made by the publishers, since the official LECTIONARY (in Latin) does indicate specific verses for each ALLELUIA.1 If someone knows the answer, please email me. The 2011 edition of LECTIONARY published in the United Kingdom seems to agree with the 1970 American LECTIONARY, inasmuch as it gives multiple options at variance with the official books for each ALLELUIA (for Sundays in Ordinary Time).
1969 Rubrics • Regarding a slightly different topic: the MISSALE RECENS was released at the very end of 1969, just four years after the 1965 Missale Romanum had been printed. The rubrics for the Responsorial Psalm read as follows:
The cantor of the psalm sings the verse at the lectern or other suitable place, while the people remain seated and listen. Unless the psalm is sung straight through without response, the congregation takes part by singing the response.
If sung, the following texts may be chosen: the psalm in the lectionary, the gradual in the Roman Gradual, or the responsorial or alleluia psalm in the Simple Gradual, as these books indicate.
Notice that the official rubrics nowhere indicate the gradual found in the GRADUALE ROMANUM must be sung “in Latin and no other language.” Nor do the rubrics forbid the gradual being sung in the vernacular. This contradicts a claim occasionally made by “terminally online” liturgical commentators.
Nomenclature • The MISSALE RECENS goes by many names. Several of the more common names would include: Ordinary Form; Pauline Rite; post-conciliar rite; the 1970 Missal; Novus Ordo; and so forth.
1 Strictly speaking, any Gospel Acclamation can be used at any time according to the MISSALE RECENS. Indeed, one could (technically) use the same verse Sunday after Sunday ad infinitum. But that’s not what I’m speaking of in this article.
