Well, it was a sublime thing when Ted Marier did it.

Jackson's perennial comment notwithstanding, I don't really see the need for a hymnal, beyond the Kyriale, the Psalter and the Liber Usualis - and perhaps related books.

My question is really whether the PIPs ever use it that way.

Is it possible that most churches are mistaken?

Looking around at Sanctus time, does one see open hymnals?

We use the same ordinary every Sunday, changing at Advent and Lent and Easter. Everyone knows them so no-one looks in the book (and they aren't there anyway). Rather less than half look up the psalm and follow, reading and responding; the rest respond from short term memory.

The book is the Catholic Book of Worship III. It is 25 years old so I guess we have done pretty well.

Hymnals should be hymnals and nothing more. Buy the Lumen Christi Hymnal today!

When I work as a cantor, I see people open the "missalette" for the psalm and for the readings. Do people not do that when the psalm is in the hymnal?

I think of events for which it is not possible for me to assemble a proper all-inclusive leaflet, for which a pew missal(ette) is not well-equipped.

At least in my experience, all the Pinterest brides today just HAVE to design their own stupid, tacky, illegible programs. I cannot trust them to properly insert nice vector graphics of the psalm, alleluia, and ordinary in the correct places, in a legible size. But I can insist that they print the numbers for these things in the hymnal, in line with the Order of Mass, so that those who want to sing may do so.

Likewise funerals. Because we often deal with 5 a week, and most everyone has the funeral director cobble together a folded 8.5x11 deal with a picture on the front, the Footprints poem, and the Prayer Not Of St. Francis with some rosary clipart, we just print or give the funeral director an 8.5x5.5 outline to include. Again, there’s not room in that for the necessary music, and judging by the composition of the rest of the leaflet, they’d screw it up if we didn’t send it in an unalterable format.

Then there’s days of unexpected tragedy, Holy Day Masses at which the choir isn’t singing, etc.

As Liam said, I think Marier’s approach (and that of the German Gotteslob) was fantastic – including the most common refrains with the psalms, and then the full text of the psalm. That way, the hymnal is usable at Mass for responsorial psalms, and for the Office (if the antiphons and tone are given in the leaflet), but it avoids the wastefulness of printing out selections from Psalm X every time it appears in the Sunday lectionary.

Now, if we could just ditch the whole business of PIPs singing, we could just print the translation of the gradual, and be done.....

There is somewhat if a precedent for other service music besides hymns to the printed in hymnals for the PiPs---a market to which Catholics (at least in the US) arrived rather late.

E.g. The Hymnal 1940 includes not only hymns, but also settings of the Preces & Responses, the Venite, Benedicite, Benedictus, Jubilate, Mag., Nunc, burial service, 4 complete settings of the communion service, and extra ad lib. settings of individual parts (Sanctuses, Kyries, etc.). The 1982 follows suit.

Other denominational hymnals include other service music such as Canticles, Amens (single, three-fold, Dresden, Danish, seven-fold, Stainer---if anyone is wondering where the Novus Ordo "Great Amen" came from), single-verse hymns for the offertory (i.e. Collection) or doxology, etc.

In other words, putting other standard service music besides hymns in a hymnal is pretty common.

Really!

I very much admire the German Catholic tradition of having one common hymnal, Gotteslob, used everywhere. It includes hundreds of psalm refrains, many psalm texts, Mass settings, teaching texts about liturgies as well as devotional practices and times of the Church year, all in one hand-sized attractive hardcover. Many people own a copy, and copies are typically available on the way into a church or cathedral. Everything in the book is numbered from cover to cover, and typically there's an electronic board that indicates the number of the next thing that will be sung (this can be done tastefully or tackily, but it's what they're used to). The GL numbers are given on TV broadcasts of Masses such as those from Cologne Cathedral on domradio.de.
https://www.domradio.de/gottesdienst/uebertragungen-im-web-tv

I do remember discovering the Catholic Book of Worship...blue one, probably 2nd edition...not in Canada but at the Cathedral of St John the Evangelist in Milwaukee. Back in the day. Their music program was super; haven't been there since then (and the controversial renovations). But CBW, maple leaf on the cover and all, was their hymnal. I was impressed by it. (And I have a copy of the choir edition of the CBW III...what a tome!)

Speaking from experience here.... my parish is stuck with Breaking Bad (Bread) for another year.... I've used a variety of psalms, never the one found in Response and Acclaim and thus in the people's pew book. I often get queries as to "why does the music not match, or why are the verses different" I have found it useful to tell people which page to turn to for the music for the ordinary setting, particularly when changing it seasonally or when learning a new one that happened to be in the hymnal one year... gone the next.

'Mass and Psalms in our Hymnals?' - Considering the shameful settings of psalmody that are in vogue in the greater majority of our parishes we should be glad that it is not in our hymnals. Unless, of course, someone like the CMAA should publish a hymnal that had no dross. It is better to have mass, the psalter, and hymnody all in one book, so that the people are relieved of the inevitable frustration of navigating two or three books - AND, so that people think of the mass with its psalmody and music as a unity. The Episcopalians and the Lutherans have long and successful experience in these matters - experience which is well worthy of emulation.

The successor for CBWIII will include something described as ‘Latin Chants’ in the Mass settings section. I presume that will be those Latin chants contained in the missal, and/or the Di angelis. My money is on the former. I also think it looks to be a disastrous hymnal, worse even than CBW III- no mean feat! It looks to be an expensive wasted opportunity and fails to capture anything of the Zeitgeist in Catholic worship. It appears to feature an additional 10 or so pieces by Mr Schutte. It doesn’t look at all good.

I know what you mean, although I like to think of all that rubbish as so last century.

"With Angels and Archangels" harmony edition is still being worked on... I think there's a master Gradual in the works as well to go with what is available in the hymnal.

I thought some of the psalm antiphons in Canada were ICET texts, at least thats how they were in the CBW II

The CCCB both does and doesn't own the copyright to their Lectionary as far as I know, which makes finding these resources rather frustrating. (Same reason why there isn't any sort of high-quality permanent missal for Canadian Catholics)

I feel like the Canadian Lectionary/missal/psalms/translations are all being held hostage and none of this helps to make the liturgy any better.

I came in to a parish that SINGS two years ago.
My favorite moments as a music director have been playing the Gloria while the congregation carries the music to the roof. It has been utterly humbling yet exhilarating to be leading the congregation in the music of the mass.

Since we have Gather 3, I was not thrilled with the mass settings in the hymnal. Last year I chose mass in A minor (Stassburger- LitPress), which was not in our hymnal. For better or for worse, we use projectors on the back walls and I was asked to project the musical notation for these parts of the mass. We have had the parts projected for the Gloria refrain, Sanctus, Mem. Acc., Amen, and Agnus Dei. We have sung the Mass in A minor for over a year, and people still utilize the wall projections while they sing (in my opinion, one of the negatives of projecting). However, people dutifully sang along as they caught on.

I understand we are fairly unique as a parish to sing so much. We are adding new mass parts to our repertoire and there was a collective sigh of relief around the office and the choirs when I told them the music is found in the hymnal this time around. We practiced the Gloria a couple weeks in a row as a prelude and have the number for the Gloria (sung through) projected with the rest of the hymnal numbers. People have picked up the hymnal and have sung with it.

As for the psalter, my predecessor used the paraphrases frequently from Gather. She woudl project the number. People were not a fan of me using sources outside of Gather, but projecting the psalm refrain's notations and words helped mitigate that.

I will say that we purchased ILP's Word of the Lord missal last year and the parish is using it and really likes it from what I see. In fact, we underestimated how many we would need and people have asked us to purchase more (and offered to donate). The psalm and alleluia are inserted between readings for each sunday. This makes sense to me. Even if we don't use that setting, they can follow along. Our pastor announces the page number of the Sunday's readings before the reader comes up so that helps increase the usage of the missal.

Kathy- I think you are correct that they really don't need to be inserted in the hymnal. It really is convenience and economy factors that keep them in, I believe.

Me? We don't use Guimont because they are the Grail translation. Our pastor wants the wording to match what is in the lectionary. I will occasionally use the Gather psalms as a hymn or in a few instances a year as the responsorial psalm when the words are super close (Christ the King and Advent 1 coming up) and I haven't found a chant based setting I like (open to suggestions!)


I gather from many sources including Chabanel psalm project, the ILP chanted psalms printed in the missal we purchased, and sometimes R&A. I still allow the paraphrased setting for psalms and funerals at this moment because this is one step at a time.

The NAB needs a good old fashioned damnatio memoriae as soon as possible.