The I.L.P. "Credo Hymnal" is wonderful! I included it in a list of possible choices when my pastor recently asked for suggestions for a new hymnal.

Gaudete in Domino Semper!

Yes, the CREDO accompaniment is expensive, but worth it qualitatively (just my opinion).

Gaudete in Domino Semper!

@Brian Michael Page After perusing W IV, I'm a little disappointed as well...

Update for 2019 on decision?

The hymn tune is known as ROUEN in the 1940 Hymnal, #228.

I am grateful for this discussion. Our parish is also going through the available selections at the moment. We have not yet seen "Lumen Christi" or "Credo". Right now, the front runners are "St. Michael" and "Ignatius Pew Missal".

We received our copy of "Brebeuf" yesterday. A beautiful, scholarly offering, but unlikely to be our choice for in the pew. That said, I still may get a set for the choir.

All-in-all, the available hymnals seem to be a marked improvement over the "Breaking Bread" that we have been using for the last decade.

We just got the Ignatius Pew Missal to replace Breaking Bread. Honestly, I’m not 100% happy with it.
The hymn selection is hardly deeper than the acceptable rep from Breaking Bread, and because it is a different bunch of hymns, a lot of them are unusable until they are “taught to the congregation.”
(No having to wade through tons of contemporary crap, that’s a plus.)
The Alleluias for ordinary time are just too simple to be usable, especially when the congregation is accustomed to 30 years of Alstott. I’ve compromised with the mode vi Gregorian melody, but the accompaniment in Ignatius Pew Missal is so bizarre that I am having to print new scores even for that.
The psalms refrains strike me as awkward. So simple as to be like, why bother? The tones for the verses are imitations of the superior Meinrad psalm tones.

I still think the Lumen Christi series is the way to go.

Pfreese,

I haven't spoken to the folks at Ignatius press, but I would be unsurprised if the reason their Pew Missal is so much like the execrable stuff you mention is "we have to take baby steps for the people".

That's really penny wise, but pound foolish. Parishes save LOADS of money by moving away from subscriptions and to permanent, hard-bound hymnals. It's a one-time expense, rather than a yearly, recurring cost.

Our figuring shows that SMH + a disposable misalette will save over $1500 per year if the SMH will last a mere five years over the annual purchase of Breaking Bread. The supposition is that it will last a lot longer and that the savings will compound.

SMH would be a sizable initial investment, however, which is why the purchase of Ignatius Pew Missal also looks attractive. That would have immediate savings for us.

I ran the numbers at a parish with a very supportive pastor who would have the best of the best with everything, if he had the funds ... it would take 7 years for a hymnal to pay for itself after moving away from IPM subscription, not accounting for the extra cost of a permanent missal if desired. Without a major donation to make it happen, that sort of investment sits low on the priority list, esp. when the boiler is on the fritz.

A one-time sacrificial gift of $20 per family (that actually attends Mass regularly) would be enough to purchase one hardbound hymnal (or Missal) for the pews. The subscription savings from just one year would be enough for the choir and organ books.

The reason a pastor can't (won't) switch from the Missalette to a good quality hymnal is because he (or a good number of the congregation) doesn't deem it important enough.

As much as I have publicly stated my love of hardbound hymnals (and disdain for missalettes), the matter of short-term cost is not a small concern. Many parishes that have missalette subscriptions don’t have cash reserves or fundraising savvy to front a sound but costly investment like a hymnal program, despite its long-term savings and benefits to a parish music program. GIA, for example, tries to counter this by offering generous financing and installment options (they of course have the business experience and size to offer this in the first place). I’m not familiar with what financing options Illuminare or the publishers of SMH offer (if any), but this would be a game changer for the publishers of traditional-minded hymnals and their potential customers alike. It’s much easier for a pastor and finance committee to get on board when the cost of a hymnal program is just five or so years of payments comparable to that of a BB subscription (less if the parish does an even modest capital campaign), and then nothing until they want to replace them. As others have said earlier, it’s too easy for these otherwise meritorious investments to fall by the wayside when church boilers and the like need to get fixed.

BHCordova,

Does the content of the hymnal figure into whether the money is well spent or not?

I know of a parish in my diocese where the priest bought the VII Hymnal, got transferred within a couple of years. His successor boxed the hymnals up and put some schlock publication back in the pews.

It is exceedingly difficult to effect change without pastoral longevity.

I can’t say I’ve seen much of this aforementioned situation in my neck of the woods; hard bound hymnals dominate up here (GIA in particular). But this does raise a question about the realism of many of these excellent but nonetheless niche traditional hymnal projects.

SMH has received some shade on these threads for including token ‘contemporary’ songs like “On Eagles’ Wings” and “Behold the Lamb,” but now that I think about, this might’ve been a smart attempt to make it more palatable to the baby boomer types who would otherwise chuck a VIIH at first sight. Worship IV is an even safer choice, but you hit a point of diminishing returns pretty quickly. That a not-so-distant future pastor might scrap such a hymnal program is always a risk, so a wise discussion on a new hymnal project should consider the present situation in the parish and broader local Church, not what they wish it were.

No consideration for the cost of what is being replaced and whether the new stuff is better than what is being replaced.

Excuse me, but this is utter nonsense.

I once went to lunch at the pastor’s favorite local Mexican restaurant. He was busy and unable to join us, but a text was sent asking if he’d like me to bring anything back to the office. When he requested “two tacos al pastor” I thought it was a tongue-in-cheek response (this was a wise and deliberate conservative pastor, with a quick wit and a strong distaste for abuse of power).

Turns out that it was just a gap in my Spanish vocabulary.

... “two tacos al pastor” ... Turns out that it was just a gap in my Spanish vocabulary.

Knowledge of Latin may help ;-) You have to be aware of false friends, though.

After a lot of thought we bought the St. Michael Hymnal for our cathedral. As many others here have said, I think it is the best "handful of hymns" available for a parish right now. I'd also point out that at bulk pricing it is less than half the cost of the Jean Brebeuf hymnal's bulk pricing. Brebeuf seems like a great scholarly resource, but I wonder at the practicality of a $28 congregational hymnal without readings.

I start from the perspective that hymns will always just be songs we sing at Mass (rather than singing the Mass itself). Thus, I don't try to find some idealized perfect Catholic hymnal. What I want is simply access to a good selection of solid traditional hymnody, and the SMH provides that amply. If we had regular liturgy of the hours, then I would want an excellent resource of hymn texts for those truly integral hymns.

Our solution for the readings was to create a comprehensive liturgy guide with the readings printed in it (along with order of Mass, choir translations, propers, etc.). We actually print this in the front pages of our parish bulletin, which is administered by LPI. LPI does fundraising via the advertisement on the back of the hymnal, so we get our liturgy guide/parish bulletin/readings for free each week. In other words, since we own our hymnals we have no costs associated with liturgical resources or printing. There are a couple of other benefits that sold our rector on the idea:

1 - limits shuffling of resources during Mass. We just have a liturgy guide and hymnal. No page number for the readings, etc. This also streamlines things for visitors, an important consideration since we are a cathedral.

2 - while some balk at the disposal of scripture, at the same time our format allows the congregants to take home the readings and propers of the day, along with their parish bulletin and announcements. This is a nice resource for reflection finding its way into many peoples' lives via the habit of taking home the bulletin.

3 - all the benefits of a liturgy guide (ability to custom tailor announcements about decorum, communion reception, etc. for visitors)

I'm attaching this week's if anyone would like to see it. I think the basic format and layout is elegant and gets a lot of information across clearly (repertoire for the different choir masses, for example).

Another benefit is flexibility for me. One beef I have with other resources (e.g. Lumen Christi) is the inclusion of psalm and alleluia melodies in a permanent hardbound readings resource. And, for that matter the inclusion of the psalm texts (which may or may not change at some point). I don't like a missalette forcing me to use a particular musical setting, or confusion resulting if I don't use that setting.

@JaredOstermann

Your setup seems lovely. How are the daily Masses handled – is some other resource provided to give the congregation the entrance/communion antiphons, psalm, etc., or is it left up to those who want such to bring their own Missals?

Before I learned about the Lebanese immigrants I used to be very confused by the image of pigs being driven across the range.