Another vintage post that gives anyone with slight mathematical ability, and a church calendar, the power to figure out what week in the psalter you should be using.
A reader pointed out that there is a yearly booklet to go with your Christian Prayer book, that tells you what page(s) you should be on every day of the year. True. I used to use one of these. Then the new year came and I'd forgotten to order the new booklet, and since I'd been lax in praying the office over the Christmas holidays, I'd lost track of what week it was. And even when I still had the current booklet, I had the habit of misplacing/losing it. Homeschooling mothers do a lot of that.
But I learned that if you keep your parish calendar at hand, you can figure everything out yourself. All you need to know is your 4x table. Look at the most recent Sunday on your calendar. It will say what Sunday in ordinary time it is. If by chance it's a multiple of four (4,8,12,16, etc.) then your should use week IV of the Psalter. If it's a multiple of 4, minus 1, (3,7,11,15...) then you want week III of the psalter. If it's a multiple of 4 minus 2, use week II. 4 minus 3? Week I.
The four weeks of advent correspond with weeks I thru IV of the psalter. The six weeks of lent correspond to weeks I thru IV, then I and II again. Same deal with the weeks of the Easter season.
Of course, you can also find this on the computer, thanks to divineoffice.org, universalis.org, and probably others. But I like being able to manage without a computer.
A reader pointed out that there is a yearly booklet to go with your Christian Prayer book, that tells you what page(s) you should be on every day of the year. True. I used to use one of these. Then the new year came and I'd forgotten to order the new booklet, and since I'd been lax in praying the office over the Christmas holidays, I'd lost track of what week it was. And even when I still had the current booklet, I had the habit of misplacing/losing it. Homeschooling mothers do a lot of that.
But I learned that if you keep your parish calendar at hand, you can figure everything out yourself. All you need to know is your 4x table. Look at the most recent Sunday on your calendar. It will say what Sunday in ordinary time it is. If by chance it's a multiple of four (4,8,12,16, etc.) then your should use week IV of the Psalter. If it's a multiple of 4, minus 1, (3,7,11,15...) then you want week III of the psalter. If it's a multiple of 4 minus 2, use week II. 4 minus 3? Week I.
The four weeks of advent correspond with weeks I thru IV of the psalter. The six weeks of lent correspond to weeks I thru IV, then I and II again. Same deal with the weeks of the Easter season.
Of course, you can also find this on the computer, thanks to divineoffice.org, universalis.org, and probably others. But I like being able to manage without a computer.
