When we read any writer of the Middle Ages—poets, theologians, historians, philosophers—we read words shaped by the liturgy of the Church. The whole of ordinary life was suspended to mark the feast, and the year contained dozens of such holy days. There, as in the medieval Church, you will hear the canticles (Magnificat, Nunc Dimittis, Te Deum, and so on), the versicles and responses, the OAntiphons, and the Psalms. The Psalms became the backbone of the medieval liturgy precisely because they met that need. The components of the modern liturgy were only part of a much larger, richer whole.