Specs - shawnco/liturgy GitHub Wiki

Specific details for implementation of version 2 of this project

High Level Details

Each office is made of pieces that I call elements for the sake of this project. The specifics of these elements are dependant on what church season it currently is, which week in the season we're in, and the day of the week. Broadly there are seven seasons:

  • Advent
  • Christmas
  • Epiphany
  • Lent
  • Easter
  • Pentecost
  • Ordinary time

In general, the following elements depends on season, week, and day: antiphon, psalmody, hymn, reading, responsory, prayer, and Lord's prayer.

There are six offices each with a specific order of elements:

  • Matins
    • Versicles
    • Hymn
    • Venite
    • Psalmody antiphon
    • Psalmody
    • Gloria Patri
    • Reading - pulled from Lutheran Hour Ministries via Curl
    • Responsory
    • Lesson - pulled from Lutheran Hour Ministries via Curl
    • Canticle antiphon
    • Canticle (Benedictus or Te Deum)
    • Weekly prayer
    • Devotional prayer - pulled from Lutheran Hour Ministries via Curl
    • Morning prayer
    • Kyrie
    • Lord's prayer
    • Benediction
  • Little Hours (Terce, Sext, None)
    • Veriscles
    • Hymn
    • Psalmody antiphon
    • Psalmody
    • Gloria Patri
    • Reading
    • Responsory
    • Kyrie
    • Lord's Prayer
  • Vespers
    • Versicles
    • Hymn
    • Psalmody antiphon
    • Psalmody
    • Gloria Patri
    • Reading
    • Responsory
    • Magnificat antiphon
    • Magnificat
    • Evening Prayer
    • Kyrie
    • Lord's Prayer
  • Compline
    • Versicles
    • Hymn
    • Psalmody
    • Gloria Patri
    • Confession
    • Reading
    • Responsory
    • Nunc Dimittis antiphon
    • Nunc Dmittis
    • Night Prayer
    • Benediction

Antiphons are passages of the Bible sung before the psalmody. The antiphons used in this project are taken from the Roman Dirunal. However antiphons are assigned a bit differently. The 5 antiphons at Lauds are distributed to each office during the day except Compline. The canticle and Magnificat antiphons are also taken from the Dirunal, and used normally.

Psalmody: in this version of the liturgy project, psalm distribution is changed so that the entire book of psalms is represented. Matins has one open slot and Vespers has two open slots. In the open slots we start from psalm 1 and go to psalm 144. Excluded from this sequence are the psalms used in other offices (4, 91, 119-134). Psalms that are more than 24 verses will be broken into roughly equal sections of 12. It will of course be a case-by-case basis. The otherwise assigned psalms appear as such:

  • Matins: 145-150 make the first psalm of the day, depending on the day of week.
  • Terce: a piece of psalm 119 is read
  • Sext and None: cycles through psalms 120-134. It's an 8 day cycle
  • Compline: alternates through psalms 4, 91:1-8, and 91:9-16

The psalms are meant to be sung, and I plan to include use of Clayton psalm tones for them. I'd like to find some MIDI files if possible. Each psalm will be displayed with a number indicating which tone to use.