Noel is just being obtuse: he knows perfectly well that an integral part of something can exist detached from that thing and lose its value. Take the branches of a vine. Take... I don't know ... the members of the Mystical Body of Christ. If what we sing at Mass doesn't matter because it's just an add-on, then the very idea of having propers is meaningless. Alius Cantus Aptus should permit Gregorian propers, not allow replacements for them, if Noel is right.

And, as a former Episcopalian, I can tell you that the beauty of music attracts one -- but other sorts of beauty attract also, and these are not always good attractions to respond to.

Went to 4:00 Mass today and experienced pretty much everything this thread takes issue with. Three of the four "sandwich" hymns were either new or not used very often, haven't heard them in my almost four years of being a parishioner at this church. Hardly anyone sings anyway, this only made it worse. One of them was quite difficult to sight-sing even for someone trained in music, even the cantor had trouble with it. HOWEVER, if my seven year old daughter can pick up the refrains after hearing them once or twice then surely other people can, too...(she has near-perfect pitch and proudly includes herself as one of the maybe ten out of four hundred of us who actually participate. Had a little old lady next to us today who smiled at her while she sang the Agnus Dei.) Be the change you want to see, I guess...even if my boys don't like to sing and mumble their way along, I still insist on their participation.

Fr. Krisman, I would like to think “traditional hymns" means hymns which are more along the lines of the the English hymns cited... “Holy God, We Praise Thy Name" as it is played and sung (though rarely written) and “O Lord, I am not worthy" are the farthest one goes before entering the junk of which you speak. That shouldn't be recovered...

Emma's a dog, I guess?

I cringed the day the Paluch Missalette resurrected "On This Day O Beautiful Mother."

It exists as no one has bothered written anything better to replace it.

I think that the contributions of many hymn writers writing after 1960 will be included in hymnals fifty years from now: Timothy Dudley-Smith, Fred Kaan, Fred Pratt Green, Delores Dufner, Mary Louise Bringle, Adam Tice, Herman Stuempfle, to name a few

Smith, yes. Green, maybe two. The others, nothing, in Catholic hymnals. Not a thing. Tice in his own denomination's hymnals and some of those of liberal Protestant groups. Stuempfle, probably not even there. The poetry just isn't there.

Idle, plenty, everywhere.

Vernacular hymnody is time-sensitive. It always has been. Except for the truly "greats" like Wesley and Watts, hymn writers who produced even hundreds of texts in their lifetimes are fortunate if they have two or more offerings in a typical modern hymnal.

This is simply untrue.

1. The vernacular was once Latin. Those hymns, in large numbers, lasted many centuries.

2. Vernacular hymnody is a worldwide phenomenon and in some languages, obscure as well as famous writers have had their works sung over centuries.

3. In English, many hymnwriters from past centuries whose names are not well known to modern musicians (as are Faber and Newman as well as the Protestants mentioned above) have their works in modern hymnals. Alford, Tucker, Dix, Hebert, Kethe, Newton, Cowper, Littledale, Caswall, Bonar, Bridges, Pierpont, How, F.B.P., Wordsworth--all of these are not timebound in English. There are equally excellent texts from these and other authors that have perennial value.

We don't disagree about numbers in large part, then.

I think it is more a philosophical difference. Are hymnals supposed to be current, up-to-date, fashionable, and thus ephemeral? (I take this to be the Krisman view, although I would be glad to be proven wrong.) Or are they supposed to be taking the very best of past and present in such a way that this hymnal could easily be used by generations to come? This would assume that the values that make a great hymn perennially useful are discernible and applicable to the editing process. (The Pluth view.)

Matthew Roth,

The Devil relies heavily on Scripture, too.

No, I'm not condemning the piece -- since I've never heard of it.
No, I'm not condemning Franciscan, since my information about it is woefully out of date.

I'm merely observing that having lots of Holy Writ within a text set to music is NO guarantee of that music/text combination being suitable for the worship of Almighty God.

Kathy, "taking the very best of past and present," yes, I agree, as long as the hymnal can have an unlimited number of entries and pages. If not, then some cuts will have to be made to the list of the "very best" of past and present.

"in such a way that this hymnal could easily be used by generations to come?" Yes, but "this hymnal" may not be able to be used optimally by generations to come since it is a "snapshot," if you will, of the Church at prayer in 2015, not 2075, and it will not include the very best created between 2015 and 2075. And if a new hymnal were to be created in 2075, and that too had a limited number of entries and pages, then to accommodate the "very best" created between 2015 and 2075, some of the "very best" in the 2015 hymnal will have to be cut. And the criterion for making the cuts is not "is this a great text and great tune" but rather, "are enough people singing this to warrant its being included in the new hymnal?" And that's how even great hymns fall into disuse. Even great hymns are not "perennially useful" if they seldom get used.

@CGZ: Now that Chonak has provided a link to "Lift High the Banners of Love," you will be able to listen to the youtube offering. Then you might have some legitimate grounds to condemn the piece.

I confess I could only make it to the 1:17 mark. Perhaps there was something redeeming after that point and I missed it.

"Lift High the Banners of Love" is the kind of thing I think of when someone refers to "(Christian) P&W" music. If LHtBoL is, indeed, "P&W" music, then I am convinced that neither Hurd, nor Haugen, nor Haas (all contemporary liturgical "troubadours," to which I referred 11 comments above) has ever written a measure of "P&W" music.

kenstb - "...a home brew"? What's that? Just curious.

Essentially, a song composed and written by a musician in the parish.

ronkrisman...some people who refer to "traditional hymns" are thinking of the junk sung at Catholic devotions prior to 1960. I cringed the day the Paluch Missalette resurrected "On This Day O Beautiful Mother."

Genesis 3:15 comes to mind as well as John 19:26. Perhaps that's to harsh. Maybe you really do love the Blessed Mother and you just don't like this hymn. I grew up in St. Mary's parish, I was blessed to learn this hymn and many other beautiful Marian hymns. I wonder can I love Him and not love her? Pardon my outburst but I'm very defensive when it comes to my heavenly mother. In this the year of mercy, Mother of Mercy, Day by Day is a hymn I think we should all sing.

There are plenty of people who have a strong devotion to the Blessed Mother who have a strong distaste for that hymn as a piece of religious music used at Mass.

Amen.

musical theater is probably a bigger influence on them than is real pop music.

This!!

And the criterion for making the cuts is not "is this a great text and great tune" but rather, "are enough people singing this to warrant its being included in the new hymnal?"

I doubt this, as stated, is the usual way that cuts are made.

1. It would be nearly impossible to discover how many people are singing a given song. One would need hard data: an expensive poll or survey, with a geographic reach equal to the proposed hymnal's proposed audience. If this scientific approach is not taken, then at best our evidence is anecdotal.

2. In our times, hymnal editors are sometimes shockingly irenic in ecumenical matters, taking liberal Protestant attitudes towards worship as primary and perennial Catholic concerns about the Eucharistic sacrifice and the lordship of Jesus Christ as secondary. Liberal Protestant hymnals' choices become the standard by which we judge our own prayer. Liberal Protestant hymn organizations become the source of the new hymns included in Catholic hymnals.

3. Hymnal committees are making historical documents that lead the direction of public ecclesial expression. It would be naive of them to not be aware of this fact. If editors care at all about the direction of the Church, they will make changes based on their own convictions. In some hymnals, this has meant that great numbers of the "new" hymns are office hymns. In others, a certain programme is emphasized. The 1916 had 14 "missionary" hymns, for example. Other editors likewise make other choices, based not on data, but on their own perception of how the Church should be praying.

I'm going to ask "What does worship demand?", and act accordingly. We have a book like that Liber Usualis.

Nice distinction, there: "pre/pro/des -criptive". Good analysis.

And FWIW, we agree on the ideal remedy. But "hymn addiction" will be difficult to cure.

Kathy,

People are dismissed from positions for staking much on "hymns that are sung should reflect our Catholic faith".

Chris

Chonak, I was going to spare everyone...

Matt Redman and Hillsong United are examples of what's in vogue today. They have much calmer pieces...

CGZ, I was merely pointing out its depth of Scripture, in my opinion, compared to pieces in the various contemporary Catholic collections.

NB: we use that only at “household life Masses" five times a year for the banner procession. That in itself I don't object to, since, cueing my inner Fr. Hunwicke, it's remarkably traditional to have banners for your Christian association!

None of this makes the music particularly appropriate, or inappropriate as the case may be. I'm just saying that within option 4, I would much rather be within a limited (and perhaps 70% Protestant) part of the contemporary side, if that was where I was (and am, as it happens). In five to ten years though I think I'll have a different preference, though.

Kathy, you have raised a number of issues in your two major postings. I will attempt to address them in the order you used.

I suggest that the Church at prayer is as it always has been. This is because the Church prays the prayer of the one Jesus Christ to His Father. The Church has a basic perennial impulse to adore the living God in spirit and in truth, to be the bride associated with her Bridegroom in His sacrifices.

I don’t disagree with your formulation. However, the Church’s expression of this “impulse” has never been a static one. It has always developed and changed. You seem to acknowledge that in your final comment: “What makes any of our liturgical expressions--including our musical resources--great is the measure to which it taps into this impulse in a way that is true to it.”

Specific concerns you raised about editorial decisions made in assembling a service book (not merely a hymnal) for liturgical use by Roman Catholics:

1. It would be nearly impossible to discover how many people are singing a given song.

Anecdotal evidence is not worthless, especially when it comes from some of the most respected practitioners in the field of Catholic liturgical music. For example, when editorial decisions were being made by the editors of Worship IV regarding what from Worship III should be cut, they sought the input of musicians who had used Worship III since its publication and were still using it 23 years later about what hymns they never used. Quite a number of these hymns were included in the “hymn of the day” feature in Worship III and had one-of-a-kind meters which required the commissioning of new tunes for that service book. Many of these tunes never caught on with the PIPs, so new texts with more familiar meters and tunes were chosen to replace them.

2. In our times, hymnal editors are sometimes shockingly irenic in ecumenical matters, taking liberal Protestant attitudes towards worship as primary and perennial Catholic concerns about the Eucharistic sacrifice and the lordship of Jesus Christ as secondary.

That seems to be a remarkable statement from someone who probably has never served as an editor for a Catholic hymnal/service book. What is your evidence for making such a statement?

Liberal Protestant hymn organizations become the source of the new hymns included in Catholic hymnals.

That, of course, is a swipe at the Hymn Society of the United States and Canada, since I don’t know of any other hymn organization to which it could possibly refer. It’s a judgment possibly arising from your own attendance at Hymn Society summer convocations. I won’t ask why you have such a distaste for the Hymn Society. Suffice it to say that of the five members of the Worship IV editorial committee, I don’t believe that two ever attended a Hymn Society summer convocation. And, from having attended 10 Hymn Society conventions, I would guess that the largest number of attendees are Southern Baptists, hardly "liberal Protestants."

3. Hymnal committees are making historical documents that lead the direction of public ecclesial expression… In some hymnals, this has meant that great numbers of the "new" hymns are office hymns. In others, a certain programme is emphasized.

Yes, to your first point. And the two hymnal committees I served on took that responsibility very seriously.

As to office hymns and non-office hymns being used at Mass, I don’t see anything in Catholic tradition that argues for office hymns as having some sort of pride of place for being sung at Mass.

Both Worship III and Worship IV were designed for use primarily at Mass (hence, the great number of entries of ritual music for Mass, including lectionary responsorial psalms and Mass ordinaries), but with sufficient music provided for all the sacramental rites of the Church and for the celebration of morning prayer and evening prayer on Sundays and solemnities. If parishes sing morning and evening prayer more regularly than that, they’ll need another resource for that purpose. And if a schola cantorum regularly chants Gregorian propers at Mass, it will need another resource for that, as well. A hymnal/service book is a book not for the choir but for the entire liturgical assembly, even if there is a choir edition which includes choir harmonizations and descants.

One programmatic feature introduced in Worship III and continued in Worship IV was the creation of a body of “Hymns for the Church Year,” that is, one hymn (a few times, two) chosen for each of the 49 out of 63 Sundays, solemnities, and feasts of the Lord in the temporal cycle of the Church’s liturgical year. The hymn texts most often have a strong connection to the gospel reading of the day. Since the lectionary has three cycles, more than 147 hymns are included in this listing. Days that have a number of possible hymn selections, such as Christmas and Easter, have no specific listing of a single hymn in “Hymns for a Church Year.”

Echoing what MJM says, the MSForum is better and more informative because you are here, Fr. Krisman.

Fr. Krisman, in no way do I decry your efforts, but does it actually get the formal recognitio from USCCB?

alius cantus ... cuius textus a Conferentia Episcoporum sit approbatus

I know that the English conference has never been prepared to endorse a hymnal for Mass, which unfortunately does not stop parishes, or indeed bishops, from using them.

Fr. Krisman,

You are mistaken about my involvement in Catholic hymnal publication.

But that is not the most important "evidence" on which I make my point #2 above. The proof is in the pudding, the finished product, the hymnal.

The Hymn Society is what it is: a Protestant organization, founded by a Protestant publishing company, headed and maintained by Protestants. This is its leadership. Its direction does not trouble me and I wish all of its people well. They are doing a good service for their own denominations.

What concerns me is the organization's enormous influence over the fourth edition of what had been the best of the mainstream publishers' hymnal series: Worship by GIA. It was crucial that the standard set by the first three editions continue into its 4th, in order that some semblance of hymn text literacy exist among Catholics. This did not happen.

As I have mentioned on this forum at least twice before, the hymnal is flooded with texts by the following persons who are heavily involved in the Hymn Society:

Thomas Troeger is ordained in and "dually aligned" with both the Episcopal and Presbyterian denominations. 12 texts.
Adam Tice is a Mennonite minister. 14 texts.
Ruth Duck is a professor at a United Methodist-related seminary and a former pastor in the United Church of Christ. 13 texts.
Mary Louise Bringle is Presbyterian. 21 texts.
The late Herman Stuempfle was a Lutheran (ELCA) pastor and seminary professor. 44 texts.
John Bell is a Church of Scotland minister. 19 texts.
The late Fred Pratt Green was Methodist. 12 texts.
The late Sylvia Dunstan was ordained by the United Church of Canada. 13 texts.
Carl Daw is an ordained Episcopalian and the former Executive Director of the Hymn Society and a member of the 1982 committee. 17 texts.

Dunstan, Stuempfle, Duck, Daw, as well as the author of Sing A New Church Into Being, Sr. Delores Dufner, 33 texts, are all Fellows of the Hymn Society. Troeger, a member. Bringle and Tice, annual presenters.

Where are the traditionalist Catholics in this group? Byzantines, Orthodox, Thomists, Missouri Synod, AAC?

How do people pray today?

Quo vadis, GIA?

In an effort to redirect the thread towards the practical (as opposed to the philosophical) aspect of "whatever happened to congregational singing," I lament-
"Where have you gone, Mary Jane Ballou?" ala Paul Simon.

Boy, the straw man is really taking a beating from Noel.

Boy, the straw man is really taking a beating from Noel.

Noel has unresolved angst.

How does one beat the stuffings out of a strawman?

Like this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SESI19h4wDo