I am the Liturgist of a Cloistered Monastery of Nuns. We are about 20 Nuns currently and are expecting around 5 postulants next semester and 2 professed sisters from our Monastery in Italy who have been destined to our Monastery here in the States and will be joining us as soon as they get their papers.
We typically use both forms of the Liturgy: Extraordinary and Ordinary and we put a high value on Gregorian Chant especially for Feasts, Solemnities, and Sundays. We are not at a place economically where we can buy many more sources. I am looking to see if anyone might have some old Graduale Romanum and Liber Hymnarius Books that they might be willing to donate. Currently we only have about 7 Graduales, which if you read the above, you can clearly imagine how that might be difficult for a monastic community. If anyone is interested in helping us you can send me a private message. God Bless you.
Greetings, Sister Marie - I have several extra GRs that I would be glad to send to you. If you wish to e-mail me your address I could get them off next week. Paying postage and packaging is optional.
Hello Sister! Your monastery sounds a lot like ours, except we're a lot smaller than 20, and I wish we had 5 postulants coming in the fall!
Have you considered adding some of the books you need to the postulants' entrance list? We ask postulants to bring the OF 4-volume breviary, a specific edition of OF Daily Missal, and an EF Missal. Usually postulants have a good number of family and friends who wish them well and are eager to help equip them for the convent. Then at least the newcomers would be outfitted.
Specific occasions can also be helpful: a benefactor wanted to buy each of the Sisters a "personal gift" a few Christmasses ago, so we asked him for a Graduale for each one! Unfortunately we don't have any extra Roman books or we would be happy to help you also. Sympathizing with your dilemma.
Yes that would be a good idea- I am not sure all of them would be able to do it, each individual is so different. Thank you to everyone for your help and prayer.
While utilitarian and certainly less desirable, I'm sure we could also select appropriate scans from books available on the CMAA repository and have them bound for you.
The OF edition of the Graduale costs about $37 from Solesmes, plus shipping. Compared to that, getting them printed from a web copy is not going to save much.
yes, a few different people have connected with us through the forum to send us different sources. God Bless all of you who have generously helped us make this possible.
To participate in the discussions on Catholic church music, sign in or register as a forum member, The forum is a project of the Church Music Association of America.