To answer a question with a question that may help garner better responses:

How much of the Ordinary is sung? [From my perspective, one's choices of settings of the Ordinary are *much* more important than one's choices of hymns; but if you're not currently singing much of it and don't intend to change that during the tenure of the successor hymnal, it's less of an issue.]

A lot can happen in 2 years. I would put the purchase off until you've impressed the heck out of everyone and they trust you with broader options.

Davido, Could you expand on WHY it is the best of the five options?

Just as an aside, it doesn't really make sense to lump the St Michael hymnal in with the Vatican II hymnal and pre-Vat II hymnals. It's not any more "conservative " than Worship II or Worship III.

I'm a bit out of the loop, but last time I saw these books, Gather 3 and Worship IV had a psalm setting at the front. Since these are only 5 options you can have, ask yourself what kind of psalmody and what kind of ordinary you want to have. The hymns are (relatively speaking) beside the point.

You could always push for the Ignatius Pew Missal, as it is an affordable annual subscription (sell it by pointing out lower costs upfront) and could be replaced next year if they don’t like it. Then spend a productive year making them like it. You can purchase a better hymnal at that point, or continue delaying commitment to a permanent book by using IPM until the parish culture will accept a more traditional hymnal.

What does everyone think of Seasonal Missalette from Paluch. Assuming it survives the merger, it might add some rep to worship or gather

If it is necessary to stick with the OCP offerings like the Alstott psalms and Schutte Mass, etc., then I suppose Journeysongs makes the most sense. Of those selections, though, Worship IV is the best hymnal, if you are willing to change to their psalm and Mass settings. If you're not sure, just stick with the missalette plan until the parish's vision may be clearer in a couple years.

davido,

How many of your congregants could find middle c on a piano? How many know which key signature uses 4 sharps?

How many know the difference between up and down?

The difficulty in learning square notation for use with simple congregational melodies is much over exaggerated. Most congregants can’t read music anyway.

The OP also explicitly said NO St Michael, but here you are suggesting that. I think the Ignatius Pew Missal is a good idea for reasons outlined above - dipping one’s toes in the water, so to speak, without the commitment or cost of a permanent hymnal. If it is well-received, then a hymnal like St Michael might be feasible in the future. It is not right now, as was clearly stated.

The hymns in Ignatius are in modern notation and the selection is 90% great with 10% to appease Susan from the parish council. The propers are in square notation but where I have used IPM we didn’t use their melodies antiphons or psalm settings anyway. The text is still there for PIP to follow, should they choose, and if you wind up using their melodies, I don’t recall any of them being particularly ornate (no compound neumes or long melismas).

If you can tell the difference between the top or bottom of a page, you can read square notation. I taught a formerly Jesus Rock parish to read square notes by introducing them to the worship aid using the settings in Lumen Christi. There were a few easy questions from curious parishioners but generally people just understood “Oh they sang that nice melody and now I should repeat it. And it looks like this on the page? Hmm. Interesting. Wonder where we’re going for brunch.”

The notation is not a stumbling block unless YOU allow it to be. And for the Ignatius Pew Missal, the recommendation here is more for the hymnal located in the back, which is a better hymnal than any listed as potential options. It is cheaper, impermanent (can be replaced if parish/pastor don’t like it after a year), and simply by its presence will help orient (gently, because it does offer some schlock) the parish toward traditional sacred music.

I actually think W4 is the second worst on this list. There are too many badly worded hymns and too many texts to certain hymn tunes. At least Gather has some texts that match the Propers...

My rankings:

1 We Celebrate
2 Journeysongs
3 Gather
4 Worship
5 G&P

I’m currently working around with despite We Celebrate.

Almost every hymn we would call “traditional” went through a vicious and lazy editing process in 1994. Masculine pronouns and any archaic pronouns or verb forms were amputated, but not everywhere, and not consistently: hymns will call God “You” in several verses, and switch to “Thou” later on, or “hast” is paired with “you”. Others repeatedly switch back and forth between “he” and “Christ”, destroying the poet’s efforts toward euphony. It’s truly pitiable and painful.

Further, many well-known hymns were Catholicked at the time of the People’s Mass Book by Westendorf and co.,, and remain thus today.

I can think of three or four quality hymns that are untouched. The remainder of the book is about 30% ruined old texts, 20% OCP/GIA stuff (SL Jesuits, Delores Dufner), and 50% mediocre doggerel by authors on WLP’s payroll (not you, illustrious @Kathy).

We use maybe 33% of the book, meaning 67% of our money was wasted.

To Richard Mix’s comment: A random list of things we’re missing that congregations (in my experience) can sing, and benefit from encountering: we’re missing two of the simple tone Marian antiphons, Crux Fidelis, Vexilla Regis, any materials at all for a licit LOTH Vespers/EP or Compline, psalm options for weddings/funerals that are not dreadful paraphrases, the Te Deum, the Magnificat, the Nunc. All of these are completely absent, whether in Latin or literalish English (not Dr. Seuss hymn-tune paraphrases).

Trying to convince folks that singing together is worth it, while using this abomination of a hymnal, honestly feels like claiming churches can be tastefully adorned, with only the famously-vandalized Spanish Ecce Homo as evidence, or saying “Italian cuisine is incredibly tasty, so let’s get excited about going to Pizza Hut.”

Seriously, ANY of the Lutheran or Anglican hymnals of the last 100 years contains more authentically Catholic content than WLP, and rather less ambiguous texts on the Eucharist. I’ve studied almost all of them, and I don’t say that lightly.

Furthermore, the quality of the choral/organ/cantor materials is extremely varied. I can only hope that my time in Purgatory may be reduced by the amount of time I have spent repointing psalms, correcting accidentals, and writing out functional harmonizations for the choir.

Here end the most pleasant and measured words I have ever uttered on the subject of We Celebrate.

Thank you for the kind shoutout, Gamba.

ryand not sure what ax you have to grind, but introducing a book with square notation in a lot of parishes could be political suicide. OP was pretty clear that a book perceived as traditional would not be acceptable, and the Pew Missal is definitely on the trad side

Kobiashi Maru:

If anything traditional is prohibited, it is simply time to change that. Wear out your knees. Beg St Jude's help. Don't simply choose from among bad options.

I'm in my third year at my current parish. I inherited Gather Comprehensive (green one from 1994) and made that useable for about a year and a half. Last Advent we purchased RitualSong II. Definitely a step up, and I've been able to introduce a lot of really good hymnody while providing enough of the Haugen/Haas to keep peace. It's worth a look, and I enjoy having both Gelineau/Proulx and Guimont psalms to choose from.

In regards to daily Mass propers, GIA's annual is decently priced, and includes the Sunday's readings as well as the daily propers. Though since most of our congregations have smaller groups for the daily Mass, I'm recommending buying several copies of ILP's Word & Eucharist Weekday edition for the daily needs. Get the Sunday readings in the big hymnal. The old folks will learn to adapt and rest it on the back of the pew in front of them. Or you can always get a mix of with/without readings for that. Worship IV was great since it was the first of the new translation hymnals published but it has its pitfalls as do all hymnals. Ritual Song 2 is a great choice to consider, it has a variety of those old standards from the 70s/80s everyone wants at their funerals while having a good selection of true Catholic hymnody, both traditional and modern (post 2000s).
I highly suspect that the recent GIA/WLP merger may result in a new hymnal within the next two years. WLP was already set to publish their "Voices" Hymnal for Contemporary settings, and Ritual Song 2 already was a "joint" effort from the Big Three publishers.

The only good thing I can say about Journey Songs is that at least the accompaniment numbers are the same as the in pew, though the choral parts are still missing....

I have not seen two hymnals discussed that might be of use to the original poster.

Catholic Community Hymnal, GIA. The other is One In Faith, WLP, now distributed by GIA.

Each would meet the qualifications set forth.

If those are your only choices, i woukd go for WIV

I hope I'm not too late to the party. I will second a previous response mentioning Catholic Community Hymnal by GIA. It is a beautiful resource, about half the size of, say, Worship or Gather, and based upon the OP's indicated criteria, might fit the bill nicely. The only thing against it, and this might be a deal breaker, is the book hasn't been updated to the RM 3rd ed, so its Order of Mass and sung settings still use the previous translation.

Although I'm sure the OP's parish has long since settled this issue, another one that would serve you well is the 2003 edition of People's Mass Book (WLP) if it's still available, although it too suffers the same drawback mentioned above.

EDIT: A quick purusal of the GIA website shows that right now, only the support materials for CCH are available - not the actual pew books. But at the same time, I can obtain pew editions of Gather I, Gather II, Worship II, and Worship III. Go figure.