A canticle (from the Latin canticulum, a diminutive of canticum, "song") is a hymn, psalm or other Christian song of praise with lyrics usually taken from biblical or holy texts. Canticles are used in Christian liturgy.
These are rather long, and the weekday ones display something of a penitential theme, but some were not often used, as all feasts and the weekdays in Eastertide had the Canticle of Daniel, assigned to Sunday.[clarification needed]
The 1911 reform introduced for weekdays not of penitential nature, and for lesser feasts and days of the lesser octaves, the following Canticles:
For weekdays in Advent, Shrovetide, Lent and the quarterly Ember Days, if not superseded by higher-ranking feasts—due to the multitude of feasts in the rest of the year, these make up almost the totality of the days that did not have the Canticle of Daniel before—the original seven Canticles would still be used.
The Liturgy of the Hours uses one canticle from the Old Testament each day at Lauds, "each weekday of the four-week cycle [has] its own proper canticle and on Sunday the two sections of the Canticle of the Three Children may be alternated".[1] The liturgy prior to the reform after Vatican II used fourteen Old Testament Canticles in two weekly cycles.
At Vespers according to the Liturgy of the Hours, a Canticle from the New Testament is used. These follow a weekly cycle, with some exceptions.[1]