Not true! It's happened at my place. We usually do all the verses, but summer is an exception. And people have complained about cutting hymns short in summer.

Well, it doesn't happen around here, because authentic Catholic worship is focused on the scripture, ie, the propers, not the words of men and/or scriptural paraphrases found in hymns.

Ben: Which strikes you as more authentically Catholic?
1) A congregation enthusiastically singing man-made paraphrases like the ones in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DwTcRbqdWGs
or
2) A solo cantor singing psalm-tone propers, unaccompanied, into a microphone?

For the life of me, I can't understand why everything has to be either/or. Hymnody certainly has its place in authentic Catholic worship—even the proper liturgical hymns of the divine office are "the words of men" and not merely scriptural paraphrases. Can hymns never, ever legitimately find a home at Mass, even if they supplement propers rather than replacing them? When there is not a sufficiently trained schola available to sing the full chants from the Gradual, do you consider option 2 preferable to 1, or are musical and aesthetic considerations trumped by literal adherence to the proper antiphons of the Roman Missal?

Ben, I really welcome this discussion! It's probably one of my favorite subjects, so prepare yourself. : )

While I recognize that the words of the liturgy are prescribed by the Church and cannot be messed with and are to be spoken/sung with the greatest care and devotion, the Church still gives us the freedom to enrich the liturgy with other musical options.

Even within the framework of an EF High Mass, you have the freedom to sing a non-scriptural based Latin hymn, as you know, at the Offertory and Communion, and if you think about it, even the great and revered O Salutaris Hostia was composed by a man, albeit the Angelic Doctor himself.

Before and after the Mass itself, it has always been a perfectly valid option to sing antiphons or vernacular hymns, and the Marian antiphons are human compositions as well. The vernacular hymns, if chosen carefully, serve to enhance the theme of the propers, readings and the season.

Speaking for myself, I find the custom of having a vernacular hymn before and after the EF Missa Cantata (as was suggested by our pastor when we started singing at our chapel) a valuable way to transition from the mundane into the sacred. The glorious melodies and the elevated language of the old standard hymns are a perfect way, in my opinion, to modulate from our normal everyday profane worldview into the sacred space of the liturgy and back out again.

Moreover, the singing of vernacular hymns at Mass is to be found in European cultures in preconciliar use. It's not mandatory, of course, but congregational hymn singing is a perfectly valid way to enhance authentic Catholic liturgy, even in the EF, and if you want any documentation, I'll be happy to provide it. Pope Pius XII, as I was discussing in another thread, warmly encouraged it.

Fr. George Rutler wrote a wonderful book on hymnody: The Brightest and Best. If I can find it, I'll share some of his beautifully written reflections on the use of hymns in church.

O ye of little faith! This morning our entrance hymn was "Praise, My Soul, the King of Heaven," tune "Lauda Anima" by John Goss. We sang all 5 verses and the rafters rang with voices and full organ on the last verse.

I was responding to Jackson's implication that it requires Protestants to get good hymn singing. Not true! I have heard all the nonsense - Catholics don't sing, Catholics can't sing, Catholics have cantor solos throughout the Mass. All of that is garbage. Catholics can sing, do sing, and even like to sing when given good leadership and decent material to sing.

Authentic Catholic worship does not require music, although it is enhanced by it, specifically the singing of the ordinary.

The important distinction about hymns is not between Catholics and separated brethren, but between the Mass (where hymns are not prescribed) and the Office (where a hymn is always prescribed).

I have used the trumpet and the dreaded Mixture Horribilis to drown out talkers. I can make it unpleasant enough that they at least leave the temple to do their talking.

I love those hymns, too!

Some thoughts from Fr. Rutler on hymns from the Preface of his book on hymnody, The Brightest and Best (Ignatius Press, 1998):

Hymns, when they are worthy and worthily understood, should enhance the classical Liturgy that, by God's grace, will soon rise from its aesthetic stupor. A right understanding of the hymn form means a right understanding of prayer, the psychology of collective song, and the integrity of the eucharistic action. Properly understood, the Mass has its own liturgical hymns. Sacred hymns were primitively held to be sacrosanct indeed: until the seventh century in the Roman rite, only the priest sang the Our Father, and it stayed that way in the Mozarabic Rite; the Gloria was generally reserved for bishops until the eleventh century. The Creed was understood as a hymn from the fifth century. Pope Symmachus introduced the Gloria deliberately as a hymn in the early sixth century; and Pope Sergius made the Agnus Dei a hymn intrinsic to the Liturgy in th elate seventh century. And all because a hymn was sung in the Upper Room.

The hymns that follow complement the Liturgy but are not part of it. The whole Mass itself is its own gigantic hymn, and it is only by indult that it said at all instead of being sung.. It is liturgically eccentric to "say" a Mass and intersperse it with extra-liturgical hymns. Hymns may precede or follow the Mass, but they should never replace the model of the sung Eucharist itself with its hymnodic propers. In the Latin Rite, that model gives primacy of place to the Latin language and Gregorian chant, according to numerous decrees, most historically those of Pope Pius X in Tra le Sollecitudini and Vatican II's Sacrosanctum Concilium. The Church has normally reserved hymns for other forms of public prayer, especially the Daily Office. And, of course, all hymns can be part of private prayer, following the Augustinian principle that he who sings prays twice.

I would support having fewer hymns, if it meant all the verses of remaining hymns would be sung. Hymns tell stories and/or relate events that make less sense if parts are left out.

Singing select stanzas of a hymn is not necessarily a Bad Thing. I depends upon one's motivation and upon one's care for some literary continuity.

To wit: many if not most of our hymns are centos of longer works to start with. 'Of the Father's love begotten', for one, comes from an original by Prudentius of several hundred stanzas. Ditto the beloved 'Jesu dulcis memoria' by an anonymous XIIth century English Cistercian. Many of the German chorales have one or several dozen stanzas in their original form. This is where literary continuity and thematic purpose enter in. The centos which we have in our hymnals have been carefully chosen to present a theological idea, tell a story, or in some manner to represent a literarily complete theme. It is nothing short of savage, moronic, butchery to omit stanzas of such conscientiously chosen hymns and centos for no other reason than that we can't be bothered with taking the time to profit spiritually from the whole. I could accept it if one were to look carefully over a hymn and suggest that because stanzas one, two, five and seven formed a literary whole that was astonishingly appropriate to the day's lectionary. But, rarely would such intelligence be encountered in the Catholic Church.

It is better by far, and more honest by far, to sing nothing than to sing one or two stanzas ONLY because we don't want to take the time or effort to sing the literary whole and comprehend what it has to say to us... and, because it is enjoyable so to do.

While I am for singing all the verses, sometimes it is out of my hands. You have all heard, I am sure, of the infamous priest who wants the hymn to stop when he reaches the altar. What priests need to do with the extra 3 minutes saved is beyond me, but it must be essential to life and health for someone.

That last bit may have been purple. Depends on whether or not you have a digital organ console.

Our associate pastor wants to sing all the verses of an entrance hymn if it is telling a story, and I am never to omit the last verse if it contains the common Father, Son and Holy Spirit type texts.

Wait... Hymns have more than two verses?

Former mainline Protestant here: at the risk of oversimplifying, in the Protestant tradition hymns don't accompany another liturgical action. They *are* the action, a standalone act of praise by the congregation, like the Gloria or the responsorial psalm at a Catholic Mass. Therefore it makes little sense to omit verses.

In the church of my childhood, there was silence at the beginning as the minister(s) processed in; silence during communion (on those occasions when there was communion) and silence at the end as the minister(s) walked out. At certain moments during the service, hymns were just sung, and nothing else happened.

Catholics on the other hand have been omitting "verses" since the fifth century, when the Schola Cantorum cut short the psalm and went into the Gloria Patri once the processions had ended.

Kathy, you can move to Phoenix and catalog my music, but we do have a rather problematic organ... and we wouldn't be able to do the 26 verses on the televised Mass due to time-constraints... But there's plenty of other Masses.

Come, join the revolution.

Pipes? Ha. 1970s Allen.

Noel:

How true. The Mass is completely misunderstood, even by the prelates who are responsible for its execution. The Church Is In Eclipse!

Hey, don't blame the cantors! We do not preside at Mass, only operate at the direction of the priest.

The first to complain about anything having to do with music in our parish are they. I have no idea who "they" are (and do not want to know) but "they" are the ones directing music. Our priest tells us, they want English, not Latin; they say the organ is too loud; they [fill in the blank with something new, or old, this week]. We are singing the offertory and communion antiphons now only because I asked for them, and continue as long as we maintain the hymns before or after.

The problem, as has been stated here oodles of times, is lack of education in sacred music, starting with the priests but including essentially all Catholics in the pews. I am hopeless of improving music at our parish, but I am hopeful for the future. I am investing in my three teens right now who are receiving an education in sacred music, and know they will widen the circle further, perhaps just with their own children but, please God, even beyond.

Kathy

Priests do not notice that people are not singing because they see the people up front very clearly. People upfront participate more fully than those in the back.

If only priests would notice the other salient features of the typical non-singer when the usual ditties are offered: over ten-years old and in possession of a Y chromosome.

That's exactly where it came from.

Low Mass: The Church's One Flouderation