The Ordinariates and the Psalter

In the catechesis at his general audience on Wednesday of this week, the Holy Father spoke of the Psalms as "the book of prayer par excellence".  His comments emphasise the significance of the Psalter to the daily office:

The Psalms teach us to pray ... In them, the Word of God becomes the word of prayer. ... People who pray the Psalms speak to God with the words of God, addressing Him with the words He Himself taught us. ... Through these words it is also possible to know and accept the criteria of His actions, to approach the mystery of His thoughts and His ways, so as to grow and develop in faith and love.

And it is in the Paschal Mystery that the Psalms are provided with their "ultimate interpretation" - it is in light of the Cross and Resurrection that the Church prays the psalms in its daily prayer:

Equally important and significant are the manner and frequency in which the words of the Psalms appear in the New Testament, where they assume and underline that prophetic significance suggested by the link of the Book of Psalms with the messianic figure of David. In His earthly life the Lord Jesus prayed with the Psalms, and in Him they reach definitive fulfilment and reveal their fullest and deepest meaning. The prayers of the Book of Psalms, with which we speak to God, speak to us of Him, they speak of the Son, image of the invisible God Who fully reveals the Father's face to us. Thus Christians, by praying the Psalms, pray to the Father in Christ and with Christ, seeing those songs in a new perspective which has its ultimate interpretation in the Paschal Mystery.

Benedict's words should recall us to pray the Psalms in Christ and with the Church in the daily office.  Restoring such a patristic use of the Psalter was the intention of Cranmer in his reform of the daily office.  In his preface to the Book of Common Prayer, "Concerning the Service of the Church", he noted of the Psalms, "now of late time a few of them have been daily said, and the rest utterly omitted".  Perhaps the Ordinariates and Anglican-Use communities in the Catholic Church, reflecting the Anglican tradition of  Evensong and of the whole people of God joining in the Office, have a vocation to exemplify such a praying of the Psalms outside of a monastic context.