If you send me a message, I’ll connect you with an excellent (sacred!) musician who chose the Credo hymnal and is happy with it, so you could chat with her about it.

FWIW, I also prefer St. Michael.

I inherited the Credo hymnal where I play.

Here are the good points about the hymnal (in no particular order of importance):
* It is a slim book--easy to hold. It is printed on nice paper. The print and notation are easy to read.
* Without counting, I'd say it has as many, if not more, good traditional hymns than St Michael. The texts, by and large, use traditional language. Unlike other hymnals, all the verses of a hymn are included.
* The publisher says that this is a traditional hymnal. I'd say about70% is traditional. The rest is contemporary--but most of the contemporary music is from the publisher's composers. I don't use these songs but the text and tunes seem to be "ok".
* There is some Taize (which I use rarely.) Also, the publisher has several short Taize-like antiphons which might be good.
* It has all the "funeral favorites" which are often requested. You know what they are!
* Of the 70% of the book that is traditional, you would have more than enough hymns to get you through a liturgical year. The Easter section is excellent.
* There is a lot of Latin chant.
* The mass settings section has some good music.
* There is a Psalter in the back of the book, but I wish that the publisher did not include music for the antiphons. It would be more useful. (I use Psalms from ccwatershed and Psalm settings by Marier.)
* There are no readings in this book.
* One could do worse than the Credo hymnal. it is superior, IMO, to Worship IV (which I have used). There is no silly stuff in Credo. Or texts that are questionable. I think it is more useful than the St Michael hymnal (which is a nice book).

Things I don't like about the Credo hymnal:
* The organ accompaniment book has a separate line for the pedal. It is not necessary and makes it hard to read the music and the text. (I use other books for the accompaniment which is a pain in the neck.)
* Many hymns are pitched ridiculously low. I play the accompaniments from other standard books.
* The choir SATB book is ok. But...the publisher has provided SATB settings for all the Gregorian chant. Why?
* For the mass readings, we use the publisher's accompanying book, Word, which is OK. But I do not use the tunes for the Psalm responses.

If I had the power to choose a worship aid, my vote and money would go for the Ignatius Pew Missal. This book has done it right. The print and quality of paper are excellent. The propers are included with simple chant for every Sunday and feast day. The daily masses have pertinent texts. The mass settings are top notch--including a mass by Willan! The hymn selection is small. But, everything you need for a church year is there. All the texts and tunes are traditional and orthodox. Yes, it has all the "funeral favorites"--so you are covered on that end. The layout of the book is easy and logical to use. The hymns are alphabetical--which I like. Everything is easy to find. It is a paperback--but it is well made. I would invest in some hard cover folders to protect it. The book is easy to hold. It is a yearly book--a throwaway, which I don't like.

I would concur with Joseph about the Ignatius Pew Missal. We have been using it at my church for a couple years and really like it. The pages are well laid out and easy to read. The paper and binding is very sturdy, especially for a yearly throw away hymnal. I really enjoy the contrast of red and black text (think say the black do the red). I also like the planning guide available on the website. It is a great help when I am stumped on hymns for a particular Sunday. With that said, I have two minor criticisms. The first is that the hymn selection is kind of small especially with regard to communion hymns. There are enough for the church year, but just barely. The second is that the gospel acclamations provided for ordinary time are only double Alleluias. This can be easily changed though by writing out the verse to your acclamation of choice.

Related to the Pew Missal is Fr. Weber's Propers for Sundays and Solemnities. Fr. Weber wrote the propers, psalms, and gospel acclamations that are provided in the Pew Missal. If you want a more complex setting still in English for a cantor or choir, I highly recommend this book.

I forgot to mention that Credo uses the hymn tune CAELITES PLAUDANT (Christ,the Fair Glory). Any hymnal that includes this tune gets my attention! Now, if it only included CAPEL.

I have found that people, rarely, bother to open a hymnal for a mass setting. I think Catholic congregations are adept at picking up the melodies of the Ordinary by ear and by repetition. This applies whether it is English or Latin.

I don't have much control in this situation. The pastor wants one book that contains everything. (Credo is available with Sunday Lectionary Readings) Can't convince him otherwise. I've already proposed Lumen Christi and Saint Michael or a possible combination of a several resources. He's not budging. The parish has no music director, each Mass has a different group of musicians. I think I would have fared much worse with something by GIA. He was leaning towards Ritual Song2, and I managed to talk him out of it. Credo will probably be fine for this parish. I was just worried about the organ book and psalter. I may have to do Francis's idea of creating a customized version. Since I often cantor alone, I don't want to deal with reading open score, and the choir is really looking forward to learning to sing hymns in harmony after decades of Breaking Bread. We do use Lumen Christi for some of the antiphons (choir only). I just refused to buy OCP Choral Praise when the harmonies are so bad, and since this isn't a full time gig, I don't have time to make custom arrangements of hymns to match the lyrics in the book.

Not sure what to do for a psalter. I'm sick and tired of Respond and Acclaim. I never used before playing at this parish. ILP's can't be any worse than OCP's, but the cantors are severely handicapped and don't read and can only sing what they know. They are catching on to the simple psalm tones in Lumen Christi, I just can't push them too hard too soon.

We have had the Credo with Lectionary in the pews since the first week of Advent. We did "donate-a-book" and had all 750 copies donated. We had been using OCP's Breaking Bad, and in addition with not creating nearly as much recycling every year, these should save the parish something like $30,000 over their projected lifetime.

For us the "pros" included the lectionary with entrance and communion antiphon (text only-no music), easy to read text, choral edition availability, good and usable hymn selection including both titles in Latin and English, and an adequate quantity of popular flotsom (On Eagle's Wings...) to keep the masses from uprising.

There are two drawbacks that I would like to highlight. The selection of Mass settings is marginally OK. It does have Jubilate Deo, Missa de Angelis, and Proulx's Missa Simplex, but the settings in English are not intuitive for the congregation to sing. These will probably become more comfortable with repetition.

Secondly, I get comments every week that they are "too heavy" for old people and children. {insert eye roll here}

We quite liked the Ignatius Pew Missal, but I did not think that our parish was ready to commit to the chant notation of the Psalms, etc. We also wanted to get away from the yearly waste. I could imagine us purchasing IPM in a decade if it would become a permanent hymnal w/ lectionary.

The Credo hymnal, without the readings. is about one inch thick. Its companion book, Word, is about the same size. People don't seem to have a problem using different books for music and for the readings. (I was surprised.)

I agree with davido about the Psalms in Credo. I never use them. Instead, I go to the choices assembled by Jeff Ostrowski at ccwatershed. I have found that the congregation easily picks up the melody without music in front of them. I don't know who Royce Nickel is, but I am indebted to him for sharing his chant based and Psalm tone settings.

Even though I am no longer in a church that has HPSC, I still use the Marier settings as much as possible. (My former parish threw away the HPSC books!)

Thanks all for your input. It looks like I will have to to create my own organ book from one of the choir books (if the book doesn't lie flat) and find a new psalter.

Before I started, the ONLY Mass settings in use were Heritage and Creation! I was hoping to move towards Saint Michael Hymnal, so I taught them the Mass of St. Michael and Missa Simplex. That's probably enough for a while.