No hour was reshaped more decisively by the twentieth century's reforms than Matins. The Second Vatican Council's liturgy constitution directed that the hour should retain its nocturnal character for those who keep vigil but be adaptable to any time of day, and the 1971 Liturgy of the Hours drew the conclusion: the Roman Matins became the Office of Readings, a service of three psalms and two substantial lessons, one scriptural and one from the fathers or church writers, which a priest or layperson may pray at whatever hour suits, with an appendix of vigil material for those who want the old form. The change acknowledged what centuries of anticipation had already conceded, that the secular clergy did not rise at midnight, while preserving the hour's real treasure, its readings, now spread across a richer two-year cycle in the full edition.
The contrast with the East is instructive. The Byzantine orthros, the rough equivalent, never migrated: it remains an early-morning office of substantial length, containing the canon, the great sung poetry of the Byzantine tradition, and in parish practice it is celebrated immediately before the liturgy on Sunday mornings, while the monasteries of Athos still keep true night vigils running many hours. Anglican Mattins, meanwhile, condensed the old Matins and Lauds into the Morning Prayer of the Book of Common Prayer, whose choral form remains a fixture of English cathedral life. One ancient impulse, to fill the night with psalms, thus survives in three distinct modern shapes.