I consult lists which suggest "hymns of the day" for specific Sundays of the liturgical year. Too often, there might be one verse in a given hymn that mirrors the gospel reading, but there is not an overwhelming association, at times, with those readings.

Some Sundays have suggestions in my hymnal that are not the type of music I want to offer my congregation. Either that, or hymns are suggested that none of know or have ever sung.

I know the concept of "hymn of the day" exists, but am not sure it is all that helpful. General praise hymns to God seem suitable for many occasions.

Charles, our comments appeared simultaneously! And we disagree, which is rare! Oh well.

Oh, I see. Sorry, I think my reading comprehension is actually getting lower. I blame it on doing too much reading in graduate school.

I am Byzantine but work for the Latins (RCs). GIA and others have hymn indexes in their hymnals that make suggestions, and there are even software programs that provide lists, or at least did the last time I looked. I just got the GIA Quarterly and it has suggested lists of hymn selections for the Sundays of Advent, not that I even recognized part of them. Some were good suggestions, others maybe so. They had one hymn suggested, "People of the Night" which is unfamiliar. Given the number of hookers on the streets in our inner city location, I hope the hymn is better than the associations that came to my mind when I read that title. LOL. I take those lists with a grain of salt.

I'm a big fan of finding hymns that match propers when propers are not possible, whether that means conveying a similar idea, or even being a paraphrase of the same psalm.

For example, at a youth retreat I directed at, we sang the communion antiphon Dominus Regit Me, followed by the hymn "The King of Love." Most propers don't have such an obvious hymn counterpart, but when I find them, I try to make use of them, when appropriate.

The only historical source in the 20th c I remember as having such as designation in the indices was Worship 2.

OCP of course puts out Today's Liturgy with a subscription to its Breaking Bread or the. music Issue. It has suggested hymns for each Sunday in its coverage dates along with liturgy planning materials in the back.

Yes ClergetKubisz but most of the time they are so wacky that I stopped looking at it. I usually now get my hymns suggestions from Canticanova or NPM guides. They are quite useful.

I just got the GIA Quarterly and it has suggested lists of hymn selections for the Sundays of Advent, not that I even recognized part of them. Some were good suggestions, others maybe so.

I see. When I took GIA Quarterly there were these lists of suggestions, but I don't recall the HotD term ever being used.

So what? You don't have any children at your masses?

Of course we do.
With any luck they will become Catholic adults, but I think that is less likely to happen without a certain level of challenge, and depth, and that theologically rich hymn texts will do that better in the long run than paraphrases of stories.

If in your situation the propers are not on the table, why would you prefer to sing generic hymns that have nothing to do with the day rather than ones that do?

Who prefers "generic hymns" or hymns that have "nothing to do with the day"?
I would "prefer" hymns that reflect the propers, but that seems particularly awkward for communion, when, as thread after thread reminds us, it's very difficult for the PIPs to sing a news song every week.

many of the propers are sort of "hymns of the day" anyway. They often directly quote from the Gospel of the day.

That seems to be only true of the communion propers, as a rule. Is the HofD intended as a Communion hymn?
That is not what it is in protestant traditions, is it? I don't recall it being placed there in the order of worship at Lutheran or Methodist services

The only historical source in the 20th c I remember as having such as designation in the indices was Worship 2.

Thanks, that's the kind o information I was looking for.
Knew I could count on you, Melo...

I don't understand your objection to this.

Not objecting, not asking for your rationale for the practice -- just wondering historically how the practice became so ingrained in the minds' of editorial boards of Catholic hymnals, not saying as a concept it leads to choices either good or bad, since clearly in practice it can do either.
Wan't my intetnion to critique the practice or term, only mentioned possible, occasional objections because you seemed unnecessarily agitated to justify your practice.

For example, at a youth retreat I directed at, we sang the communion antiphon Dominus Regit Me, followed by the hymn "The King of Love." Most propers don't have such an obvious hymn counterpart, but when I find them, I try to make use of them, when appropriate.

Excellent. But there are also people who when planning see the word "shepherd" and say, aha! the theme of our Mass is "shepherd" here are 4 hymn texts that use the word "shepherd," I'm home free! which is why I would object to a too-facile assignment of a "theme" to Mass.

(Save the liturgy, Save the World)

It seems to me that the idea of HYMN OF THE DAY as specific concept is extremely influenced by Protestantism - more specifically, a particular brand of Low Church Anglicanism that one finds in Episcopal and Methodist parishes....
A number of collections of these "Gospel Hymns" have been developed, as publishers of hymnals and Protestant music directors have realized that the standard body of traditional hymnody has a lot of Rhyming Statements on Doctrine, but not that many Songs Having Anything To Do With Any Specific Biblical Passage.

Ah, interesting, thank you.
I've often come across phrases like "Stankey Gospel hymns" in a British context but foolishly assumed these were like the "gospel music" in the US that that are the spiritual version of blues, (or the blues version of Spirituals.)

Are various versions of the musical rubrics for the BCP available on line? (there's probably a better search term than "rubrics")

Save the Liturgy, Save the World!

Also - the problem of BCP rubrics (besides the fact they aren't printed in red) is that they have little to do with what actually happens in any normal parish. Each edition is trying to satisfy a number of goals at the same time: (1) prescriptive advice based on the editors' liturgical point of view, (2) descriptive information about what is commonly done, (3) substantially retaining content form the previous edition even if it is no longer relevant.

The result is often frustratingly incomplete instructions which actually don't frustrate anybody because nobody bothers to read them anyway.

the problem of BCP rubrics (besides the fact they aren't printed in red) is that they have little to do with what actually happens in any normal parish.

This would make them different from the RCC how exactly?

Once we are (falsely) convinced that each Mass should have its own theme, the proper chants from the Graduale suddenly look misplaced and inappropriate, because they don't seem to correspond to this supposed theme. Hence, they are met with some resistance, as if the Graduale chants are not liturgically appropriate. This is, I think, a much underestimated problem when trying to introduce sung propers into a parish' Sunday Mass.

Yes. I think when taken as a whole, the readings, collects and propers are filled with a kind of "checks and balances," which may be more suited to corporate worship.

(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)

(these are usually from pre-Urbanite reform originals)

Does this explain the melodic discrepancies between 1906 Office hymns (and in Anglican/Episcopal sources such as the 1940 and 1982) and those same melodies as found in Catholic publications?

Examples:
-Conditor Alme
-Pange Lingua

I bought a copy of Hymns for the Gospels when it came out. Most of the texts I can't see a congregation singing heartily. Some of them are interesting to look at, and some are good by themselves, but I'm not sure this idea translates well into the Catholic Mass.

The corpus of really outstanding texts was still developing when Hymns for the Gospels was published in 2001. Only 72 of the 159 texts therein are included in Worship IV, and several of those were not considered to be sufficiently related to a specific Sunday or solemnity Gospel pericope as to be listed among the hymnal's "Hymns for the Church Year" (the title used in Worship III and Worship IV; RitualSong's title is "Hymns and Psalms for the Church Year" since musical settings of responsorial psalms are all included in the psalter section in the front of that hymnal and the RS index indicates the hymnal number for those responsorial psalms).

Parishes which use Worship IV and publish their weekly orders of worship online appear to be using the Sunday Gospel-related hymns quite regularly, more often during the preparation of the altar and offerings, less often as entrance and recessional hymns, sometimes as hymns after communion, seldom as hymns during the communion procession.

From the 70s on, they began to provide more apparatus, so that the New English Hymnal suggests four hymns for Sundays and feasts, arranged according to the Revised Common Lectionary. Even so, there's a sense that choosers of hymns should 'just know' what to have when.

The Hymnal 1940 has, beginning on p. 804, a Liturgical Index, which is a listing of suggested hymns for the services of the church year, Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and Holy Communion.

I think I'm right in saying that the Hymnal 1940 was an official book, which the EH, NEH and A&M never were. As eminent as their editorial boards were, an official hymnal was never a C of E policy.

C of E, with its medieval roots, was content to let liturgical practices develop organically and locally.
PECUSA, steeped in mainline American progressivism, seems to be fond of top-down programming.