Faith

OSV News photo/Gregory A. Shemitz

Formed in Christ

The Liturgy of the Word -- Responsorial

Friday, October 3, 2025Faith

Submit a Letter to the Editor

The responsory helps us sharpen our appreciation for the sacred texts of the Chosen People of Israel. It also stands as the prayerbook of God's People -- Israel and the church.

Father Robert M.
O'Grady

The Book of Psalms provides most of the biblical texts for the response to the first reading. Though called the "responsorial psalm" because of its nature of verse by psalmist and response by the assembly, the responsorial can also be a canticle from either the Old or New Testament. But most of the responsorials in the Lectionary are from the Book of Psalms.
The psalms literally permeate our liturgy. They appear most evidently after the first reading. However, throughout the Mass, they appear almost everywhere -- as verses of the antiphons for the entrance, preparation of the gifts, and Communion. They sneak into the prayers, collect, prayer over the gifts, and post Communion. The Eucharistic prayers echo psalms. The readings, all three, contain snippets.
All our other liturgies have something from this book. And the Liturgy of the Hours is replete with psalms and augmented by canticles, again, from both Testaments.
The Book of Psalms is the prayer book of both Israel and the church.
When the editors of the Lectionary were compiling the texts, they made a definite effort to have the chosen psalm of the day reinforce the first reading. Though in a different style -- poetic rather than narrative.
To add additional emphasis to the psalm being different from the other readings, its preferred proclamation is that it be chanted or sung, with its being read as a last option.

On Sunday, the psalm serves an additional purpose; it kind of bridges the first reading and the Gospel. This can, sometimes, lead to an almost overlooking of the second reading, especially by those who preach.
Before the arrival of movable type and long before the arrival of AI-generated texts, books were created in longhand, the manuscripts were exquisite works of art, demonstrating an artistic eye and familiarity and love of the Scriptures by the artists. These were mostly monks in scriptoria (literally -- writing rooms) who were commissioned either by popes, bishops, or pastors to create a volume that could be used at Mass and other liturgical celebrations.
Because of the cost of the materials and the time required to complete the volumes, they were not common, and only the more frequently used books were painstakingly copied and masterfully produced.
The most requested, or to make it more current, the "bestsellers," were the Book of Psalms and the four Gospels. The volumes even had their own names: The Psalter and the Evangeliary. We have these and many other readings combined into our four-volume Lectionary for Mass.
According to various calculations, about 25 percent of the Book of Psalms appears in the Sunday Lectionary in its three-year cycle. This is almost twice as much as the rest of the Old Testament combined, 14 percent. These numbers refer to the psalms used as responsorial, after the first reading. If the appearance of the psalms in other places in the Mass were included, we would probably have up to 30 percent. It is, for us Catholics, the most proclaimed of the Old Testament books.
The Book of Psalms is generally the easiest of the biblical books to read or pray. Some say that the Gospel of Luke follows as a close second.
There are many translations of biblical texts, and often there is a translation of the psalms that is compiled apart from all the other books of the Old Testament. The four Gospels sometimes appear in a single-volume collection apart from the remainder of the New Testament, as well.
Most biblical scholars are keen to remind us that psalms are songs. They are by nature given to be sung. This has given musical artists a trove of texts which they can combine with music to express even more the tone, the message, and the sense of the psalm. This is also a reminder to those who prepare Sunday liturgies -- pastors, liturgy coordinators, and pastoral musicians.
Perhaps the best known, maybe also best loved, psalm is Psalm 23, cited usually by its first line, "the Lord is my shepherd."
Its popularity can be seen in its many musical settings, from the remote past to our own day.
It has also generated much commentary, both scholarly and spiritual.
The psalm presents an image of an ideal human shepherd; in ancient Israel, this image was often applied to the king, so it might be a royal job description. But it is above all, as we pray it, the image of God and us.
The responsory helps us sharpen our appreciation for the sacred texts of the Chosen People of Israel. It also stands as the prayerbook of God's People -- Israel and the church.
The Book of Psalms, we might say, serves also as an excellent introduction to and summary of the whole Old Testament.