Bridge-Building Hymns for NO wedding mass
  • Hello all!

    I'm using the Source and Summit hymnal and have OneLicense to grab "bridge-building" hymns as needed (though I rarely need them).

    I've got a good stable of solid hymnody to choose from for weddings, but one meeting didn't go so well...the bride and groom knew ZERO of the hymns listed, even when I sang them (are Love Divine, All Loves Excelling or All Creatures of our God and King that obscure??).

    I'm looking for the best of the options you'd find in Breaking Bread and JourneySongs for Preparation of the Altar and Communion. Things that are well known among "average" Novus Ordo people in small town America, not egregiously secular musically, and fit with the context of a nuptial mass.

    Gift of Finest Wheat for communion, but I'm drawing a blank otherwise. The wedding is two weeks from now and there is very little decided, so I'm in panic mode.
  • I have found these to be frequently chosen for weddings:
    Ubi Caritas (Hurd)
    I Received the Living God
    How Beautiful
    Where Love is Found (Schutte)
    Thanked by 1PolskaPiano
  • If by "how beautiful" you mean Twila Paris, please, no.
  • JS 749 - God is Love (Abbot's Leigh)
    JS 636 – Now thank we all our God (Nun Danket)
    JS 571 – God who created hearts to love (Lasst uns erfreuen)
    JS 568 – When love is found and hope comes home (O Waly Waly)
    Thanked by 1cesarfranck
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,064
    I wouldn't propose ABBOT'S LEIGH for a wedding congregation. I know organists adore the tune, but if Love Divine and All Creatures (the OP already noted LASST UNS ERFREUEN drew a blank from the couple) are terra incognita, ABBOT'S LEIGH is far more remote than those for Catholic + unchurched congregations.
    Thanked by 2MatthewRoth LauraKaz
  • Earl_GreyEarl_Grey
    Posts: 903
    Try "God in the planning" set to SLANE. It was in ritual song. Most will recognize and appreciate an Irish folk song.
    Thanked by 1PolskaPiano
  • Frankly, if they are THAT unchurched, I’m not sure they should get that much of a say. Sounds harsh, but let them pick the marching music and then select the hymnody yourself. No one but the cantor will be singing anyway.

    In any case, any of those texts could be paired to different tunes.
  • GerardH
    Posts: 445
    Yes, there are points open to heretical interpretation, but Amazing Grace is universally recognisable.

    Or any old text to THAXTED - I'm sure there'd be a marriage-specific one somewhere
  • I wouldn't pick any of the ones I listed either. It's just an answer to the question of what might be recognized by the couple in question.
    Thanked by 1ServiamScores
  • francis
    Posts: 10,774
    Weddings don’t need hymns. Typically it’s unchurched or nonChristian people who are attending.

    I don’t get what this thing is with everybody needing to sing. Perhaps this is a protestant mentality. Hardly anyone if anyone sings anyway. If singing must be involved, let the cantors/choir do it. I would not project the expectation that people need to sing hymns at a wedding. Fill the liturgy with beautiful music at the appropriate times and you will do well.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,218
    In fact, at funerals at least in my old parish, the DM would do the gradual unless someone insisted.

    I would take the same approach for weddings if possible.
  • Earl_GreyEarl_Grey
    Posts: 903
    Perhaps this is a protestant mentality.


    Exactly. And yet trying to argue with a bride and groom or priest when preparing for a wedding Mass is usually not a good strategy. By all means, if you have any influence, have a suggested normal rubric for weddings and funeral and only take requests when they are insisted upon. But for some reason, most priests assume there must be four hymns at every Mass no matter what (even if they don't like to sing and refuse to wait for all the verses) and that singing antiphons (prescribed by the Church) or having an instrumental processional/recessional is somehow illicit. If congregational hymn singing is part of the local culture, wonderful, it can be a beautiful thing, but I don't understand why it is insisted upon when no one actually wants to sing them and there are capable choirs/cantors and organists available who could perform better music at least on occasion.

    Congregational singing (aka participation) is an ideal that is rarely realized and it is used an excuse to not program good music of artistic merit for Mass.
    Thanked by 2CHGiffen kenny
  • Richard MixRichard Mix
    Posts: 2,791
    I have no compunctions about ending a hymn after verse one if no one has joined in yet. I might make an exception for "A mighty fortress" of course ;-)
  • Ode to Joy for recessional?
    Thanked by 2GerardH Liam
  • I'm in agreement with you all completely. I yearn for better music. They've insisted on their requests to the point that I'm willing to do music that I would rather not just to get by.

    A family that has mostly left our parish (which is sadly a common reality in this town) because of the shift to a reverent Mass and the music that goes with that, a couple that doesn't go here, a substitute priest, an embittered cantor (aunt) only singing because they insisted, and two weeks to get everything together.

    Here's the list I sent (and yes, I tried to bury worse pieces at the bottom of each list):

    Offertory:
    Love Divine, All Loves Excelling (or Alleluia, Sing to Jesus, which is the same tune)
    O God Beyond All Praising
    Joyful Joyful We Adore Thee
    Holy God We Praise thy Name
    Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
    At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing
    Lord of All Hopefulness
    Shepherd Me, O God? Maybe? This strikes me as more of a funeral piece.
    Where Charity and Love Prevail
    Prayer of Saint Francis (only because it was Grandma's favorite piece)

    Communion:
    Gift of Finest Wheat
    Love Divine, All Loves Excelling/At the Lamb’s High Feast/Where Charity and Love Prevail could also work here.
    Taste and See, Moore
    Ubi Caritas, Hurd (this could also be offertory)
    The King of Love My Shepherd Is
    God is Love, Joncas (at least it's close to the Ubi Caritas text...)
  • These are not what I would ordinarily recommend
    but looking at the lists above, how about

    ** Gounod Ave Maria
    ** Franck Panis Angelicus
  • "Frankly, if they are THAT unchurched, I’m not sure they should get that much of a say. Sounds harsh, but let them pick the marching music and then select the hymnody yourself. No one but the cantor will be singing anyway."

    Serviam Scores said this better than I could. IF singing a hymn for weddings or funerals is important, then you have to sing it at least 6 times during weekly Mass in a year, so at least those who attend Mass regularly will sing it.

    Otherwise, create a small choir with a set repertoire and sing that music unchanged at every funeral or Mass.

    The TLM does not have this problem. What a concept! The person that superimposed Ave Maria on Schubert's secular song must have needed income as a soloist at a Latin Mass.
  • (did someone mention Schubert?)

    Wasn’t it St Thomas Aquinas who said (pardon my clumsy paraphrase) that if you want to convert someone, you need to start at his level.
    Like I said,these are not things I would ordinarily choose, but I would put them above the contemporary works as a rule.

    Besides, the lists above entirely omitted our most blessed Lady, and she is on record as one who loved attending weddings.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,218
    then you have to sing it at least 6 times during weekly Mass in a year, so at least those who attend Mass regularly will sing it.


    My parish tries anything once. The kicker is that some hymns, particularly the more nineteenth, early twentieth-century kind that we've largely dumped from the repertoire, are just too hard. But we could probably try something like "Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates" (MACHT HOCH DIE TÜR, please) once a year and get everyone hooked on the second or at least third verse…
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,064
    Ah, Hymnary shows no Catholic hymnals in the USA pair LUYHYMG to that tune. It's always TRURO instead.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,218
    A pity. I don’t care for TRURO, which rings as too Episcopalian for me. That was a problem in an old parish and to some extent here. New words or tunes were okay, but the tunes had to have oomph without feeling Episcopalian to cradle Catholics or the longtime converts.
  • emac3183
    Posts: 46
    Update: They chose the worst hymns on the list that I sent them, but the majority of the music for their wedding was beautiful (SSM entrance and communion antiphons, sturdy instrumental processional/recessional, Missa Simplex as the Mass Ordinary, even good preludes). Not my preferred outcome, but I think one that had a positive effect overall in terms of their perception of sacred music.

    I think most of my issue is that the weddings we have here are generally people who grew up here in the early 2000's (getting attached to atrocious music), then moved away and experience the wedding planning process as whiplash, genuinely not knowing what sacred music is or should be. I have only had one couple so far who regularly attend Mass here (out of 7 planned now), and that planning process was so easy because they trusted me to make decisions appropriate to the Mass. Ditto for the couple who had a faithful mom join the planning meeting who said "oh, you guys don't understand. He's going to make it beautiful" and basically planned their (awesome) music for them.
    Thanked by 2francis irishtenor
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,847
    genuinely not knowing what sacred music is or should be
    which is why I'm generally fairly strict with funerals. Ahhhh the folly of allowing people who have never studied liturgy or theology dictate the liturgy....
  • trentonjconn
    Posts: 608
    Ahhhh the folly of allowing people who have never studied liturgy or theology dictate the liturgy....


    Like the quintessential parish volunteer boomer lady who has totalitarian control of all parish funeral planning?
  • francis
    Posts: 10,774
    Like the quintessential parish volunteer boomer lady who has totalitarian control of all parish funeral planning?
    Of course! Let's have a "ressurrection celebration"! (can never remember if two ss's or two rr's so spelling with both... in your mind, delete the letter that does not belong and be happy)

    NOTE: Don't build bridges to OCP (sandy ground)
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 2,847
    NOTE: Don't build bridges to OCP (sandy ground)
    I laughed out loud.

    What I find so curious, is that there are some legitimately lovely motets in their catalogue that seem so terribly at odds with everything else they [pr]offer.

    A perfect example:
    https://www.ocp.org/en-us/songs/15824/the-reproaches?p=4525

    Imagine if they filled their catalogue and hymnals with stuff like this!
  • Jeffrey Quick
    Posts: 2,086
    any old text to THAXTED - I'm sure there'd be a marriage-specific one somewhere

    O God Beyond All Praising gets done for weddings a fair bit hereabouts.

    Serviam: that Victoria adaptation is slick!
    Thanked by 1ServiamScores
  • a_f_hawkins
    Posts: 3,449
    l have the impression that Archbishop Sample is slowly but steadily shifting the balance at OCP.

    https://www.ocp.org/en-us/antiphon-resources
    Choose Christ Missal, an annual missal with a repertoire that leans towards youth and emerging Praise and Worship styles of music. OCP has announced that this missal will be discontinued after the 2024 edition.

    Not every parish includes antiphons in their liturgies and even experienced music ministers might not know much about these beautiful elements of Catholic worship. Learn all about antiphons, how to include them in your parish liturgies, and what kind of music resources might be right for you in this helpful Antiphons Webinar led by Angela Westhoff-Johnson, OCP’s director of product development and director of music at St. Mary’s Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Portland, Oregon.
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 2,218
    there are also just more options than an annual dealio for that.