Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction. - 2 Cor 1:3–4Apparently it was about 4 years ago that we were “getting there”, with the penultimate psalm tone that the Lutheran Liturgical Prayer Brotherhood deemed appropriate for the psalms and canticles of night prayer. Ho ho. I didn’t stop singing night prayer with Noemi, but having committed two psalms to memory, one slipped out of it, and I struggled to get the third in, so I needed a rethink.
I investigated strategies for commiting verbatim texts to memory, and found one or two things. I’ve used the idea and tool here extensively. In this case, rather than use them to actually memorise all the psalms I need, I just use it as a concise reminder for the psalms and scripure readings: that way I can fit what I struggle to remember for night prayer on two sides of A4 and turn the light off after the scripture reading – Jurassic Park.
So here’s the table again, and now I’m doing the last tone.
Day
|
Tone
|
Tone for 2nd
Psalm
|
Nunc Dimittis
|
|
Sunday 1 |
VIII
|
VIII
|
III At
last, all-powerful Master...
|
|
Sunday 2 |
VIII He
who dwells in the shelter of the Most High...
|
|
III
|
|
Monday |
II Turn
your ear, O Lord, and give answer...
|
|
III
|
|
Tuesday |
VIII
|
|
III
|
|
Wednesday |
I
|
VIII
|
III
|
|
Thursday |
I Preserve
me, God, I take refuge in you.
|
|
III
|
|
Friday |
V Lord my God, I call
for help by day;
|
|
III
|
So that’s tone II, another one that only comes in one version. Now, it’s been a while: you could look back at the first post in the series for a complete explanation, or perhaps the last tone I posted for a very superficial reminder.
Marking some of the words up for the final stresses that we need:
Turn your ear, O Lord, and give ánswer*My example MP3, and all the MP3s, is here, and this is a one-page PDF summary of all the tones.
for I am poor and néedy.
Preserve my life, for I am fáithful:*
save the servant who trusts in yóu.
You are my God; have mercy on me, Lórd,*
for I cry to you all day lóng.
Give joy to your servant, O Lórd,*
for to you I lift up my sóul.
O give your strength to your sérvant*
and save your handmaid's són.
Show me a sign of your fávour†
that my foes may see to their sháme*
that you console me and give me your hélp.
And … that's it. I had talked about doing the others tones to make up all eight, but at this point I think not!
