Market Pivot Toward Tradition in OCP's Heritage Missal

RC_Liturgy_Music

Hi, all!

For those that don't know us, we are RC Liturgy and Service Music, a small team of lifelong friends and musicians who have been involved in music and liturgical ministry our whole lives. In this post, we wanted to share some research and findings with you!

Last year, OCP announced that 2026 would see a significant revision for their Heritage Missal. This resource has always been considered a more compact version of their popular Breaking Bread missal; someone we know used to call it Breaking Bread Lite!

However, in the last few years, OCP has made some big changes. They have been promoting Heritage Missal alongside quotes from Sacrosanctum Concilium, showcasing its Latin and chant, adding Meinrad Psalm Tones and Missa de Angelis, amongst other things.

According to the preliminary song list on OCP's website (which is subject to change), 2026 shows an even bigger market pivot toward tradition. This appears to be one of the most significant shifts OCP has taken with a pew resource in a long time. While the missal is not quite 50% traditional, it marks the beginning of a clear transition to differentiate this OCP product.

We believe that there are many reasons that might explain this shift, including efforts by the USCCB to correct theologically unsound text (see Catholic Hymnody at the Service of the Church) and partnership with Portland Bishop Alexander K. Sample. Another such explanation is the growing demographic of youth who are looking for more authentic and classic expressions of worship. Perhaps the legacy publishers are responding to the growing resurgence and appreciation of restoring tradition (and resources such as Source and Summit, St. John de Brebeuf Hymnal, Ignatius Pew Missal, and more).

We are happy to share our humble findings about the 2026 Heritage Missal changes with you! We know that the members of this forum have a deep love for traditional music, and we wanted to share this good news with you all.

Thank you!
RC Liturgy and Service Music

Diapason84

I don't trust OCP. They cut a lot of material by the greatest hits composers of the '70s and '80s -- Schutte, the St. Louis Jesuits, Carey Landry, Marty Haugen. That in itself is a great sign anywhere, but the revised product still has too much bad music, and I doubt they've pivoted with their text alterations. OCP knows that the customer base that grew up in those decades, frankly, is retiring/aging out of American parish music programs and will not be buying the disposable booklets anymore.

There are so many better alternatives for free or low cost elsewhere, with propers, sound texts, sturdy tunes. Why bother?

Liam

One notable deletion to applaud: Mass of Creation.

Were I still active in music programming, it's the quality of settings of the Ordinary and the psalter (noting in passing that paraphrases are not licitly part of the psalter for responsorial psalms) that are the most important things, whereas they are often treated as background by the big publishers. The Mass of Creation was something when it was first published: it provided for ensemble support in a way previous popular settings of the Ordinary in English did NOT [correction], and thereby anchored itself as the go-to for large ceremonial celebrations of the Mass. It has not aged well, especially after the ham-fisted adaptations for the 2011 edition of the Missal, which should have been the occasion for a more dignified retirement.

CatholicZ09

I’m interested to look more into this and see how it evolves.

My parish used Breaking Bread for 25-30 years until COVID when we had to pivot to a worship aid. We also have Gather 3 in the pews at the behest of the pastor when we merged with another parish in 2022 and they had a surplus of G3 and so kindly (sarcasm) offered for us to put the surplus in our pews.

Our pastor dislikes spending money on yearly disposables and was happy to get away from them during COVID, but there has been some talk about going back to Breaking Bread. Thing is, Breaking Bread has a lot of stuff we wouldn’t use like the Sarah Hart pieces and other stuff that replaced Haas. Heritage Missal might be a good adoption for us if we ever go back to OCP. Ideally, I’d like to not go back to OCP, but if I have a choice between an OCP missal or the next iteration of Gather, I’d pick OCP.

Will keep an eye on this!

Abbysmum

The Mass of Creation was something when it was first published: it provided for ensemble support in a way previous popular settings of the Ordinary in English did, and thereby anchored itself as the go-to for large ceremonial celebrations of the Mass.

I'm curious now what Masses are normally used as ceremonial celebrations? We commonly use Fr. Geoffrey Angeles' setting here in my archdiocese, but he's also from the archdiocese (and current rector at the cathedral). They are wonderful, however.

CatholicZ09

Proulx’s Community Mass comes to mind.

TimTheEnchanter

I think this is further evidence of my thesis that OCP is making changes based on the market, and GIA is making changes based on ... wishful thinking?

RC_Liturgy_Music

Hi again! It looks like Heritage Missal is actually becoming more traditional than anticipated. Our preliminary findings (see above) underestimated the shift! With OCP releasing the official edits, we see a bigger shift than we anticipated.

About 4 years ago or so the make up was:
- 60% MAINSTREAM
- 35% TRADITIONAL
- 5% CONTEMPORARY

Then 2 year ago, it became:
- 50% MAINSTREAM
- 48% TRADITIONAL
- 2% CONTEMPORARY

Now, we see on OCP's site:
- 38% MAINSTREAM
- 62% TRADITIONAL
- 0% CONTEMPORARY

This is excellent news! A big shift over the last several years.
- TRADITIONAL -> 27% increase
- MAINSTREAM -> 22% decrease
- CONTEMPORARY -> 5% decrease (now completely gone)

As we said above, we are happy to share our humble findings about the 2026 Heritage Missal because we know that the members of this forum have a deep love for traditional music, and we wanted to share this good news with you all. This Missal could be a great "pivot" option for many parishes.

Thanks!
RC Liturgy and Service Music Team

Gamba

This is good, but dare I say, they continue to miss the boat. From OCP’s blurb, emphasis mine: “…:this trusted annual missal contains everything you need to support the liturgy.”

I see a mention that the Heritage Missal gives 8 Meinrad tones to sing the RM antiphons, and from the accomp. edition it looks like the tones are printed in an appendix at back.
https://www.ocp.org/en-us/blog/entry/a-heritage-missal-for-todays-church

But besides that, I fear it’s still as the blurb says: a source of extra supporting stuff to tack onto a liturgy, rather than a tool with which to sing the liturgy. Only two Gregorian Mass ordinaries, no Credo as far as I can tell, no translations of the Graduale propers with the Sunday readings, and nothing as convenient Source & Summit / Ignatius for the people to sing the Missal antiphons……but there’s still Mass of Creation and the accursed Mass of Christ the Saviour.

Progress is progress and it’s preferable to many others, but still sad that this is what passes for “traditional”.

Chant_Supremacist

@RC_Liturgy_Music Thanks for making and sharing this analysis. I agree it's something to be relatively happy about. I don't recognize a number of the hymns classed "traditional," and while I'm largely willing to take it face value, would you mind sharing your definitions with us?

RC_Liturgy_Music

Hi @Chant_Supremacist! Thank you for your comment. We are glad you found our analysis useful!

We actually created a key to our classifications in the original document, and we are happy to repost it here. As you can see, we classify Traditional as "chants, hymns, and/or other music set to traditional tunes/melodies." Hope that helps! :)

francis

Traditional, in my mind, would be time tested tunes and texts… not “set”… if you are setting something new to something traditional it belongs in the “leaning” column. Yes?

So, if you created a truly traditional column, what would be the percentage?

CatholicZ09

Ugh - are we at that point where “They’ll Know We are Christians” is now considered “traditional”?

Chant_Supremacist

Francis that's an astute point and exactly the type of thing I was hoping to draw out from seeing the definitions.

At the same time, this is a comparative analysis of two editions of the same modern hymnal, and I tend to think a 'soft' definition of traditional weakens the sense of optimism but doesn't wipe out the comparative finding.

I think we should also take care not to assume (as I know I'm prone to) that categorizations other that traditional always equal bad/inappropriate music or that traditional equals good music. Those more familiar with the contents and publisher's reputation than I am may feel that in this case, it actually does mean those things. I can't speak to that personally, and just want to note that a hymnal consisting of 100% traditional music is not the same as and may be worse than one consisting of 100% good music.

But this can make analysis much more fine-grained, and I for one am not going to be undertaking that, so I still appreciate a more superficial comparison (one which surely took serious effort) for what it's worth.

francis

@chant_supremacist

I have a dog in the fight, hence my reasoning… I have created a 100% traditional hymnal (if that can even be a thing)… all lyrics are in the original English.

http://franciskoerber.com/fleur-de-lys-hymnal/

SponsaChristi

Ugh - are we at that point where “They’ll Know We are Christians” is now considered “traditional”?

We’re now at that point where, “Here I am, Lord” is considered “traditional” by Gen Xers and Xennials, yet, based on this punk rock arrangement by The Vandals” would qualify as “contemporary” based on OCP’s definition.

Abbysmum

We’re now at that point where, “Here I am, Lord” is considered “traditional” by Gen Xers and Xennials,

Ugh, I had this conversation last week. They were trying to convince me that I Am the Bread of Life was a "classic" and traditional.

contemporaryworship92

Ugh - are we at that point where “They’ll Know We are Christians” is now considered “traditional”?

As is right and just!

We’re now at that point where, “Here I am, Lord” is considered “traditional” by Gen Xers and Xennials

Reasonably likely this will be regarded by most everyone as traditional someday.

They were trying to convince me that I Am the Bread of Life was a "classic" and traditional.

I would also try to convince you of that!

Seriously y'all. These are all scripturally based, doctrinally orthodox, well written, songs that are among the songs congregations most love to sing.

Keeping these songs while throwing out the heterodox and banal is a win.

Vatican II, and the time between Vatican II and now, is a part of the lower case t tradition of the church. In my view the path forward requires discerning what is good and worth observing from this era, and creating a synthesis with pre-1965 tradition. The new edition of Heritage Missal strikes me as significant progress in this direction.

Abbysmum

Seriously y'all. These are all scripturally based, doctrinally orthodox, well written, songs that are among the songs congregations most love to sing.

Keeping these songs while throwing out the heterodox and banal is a win.

Vatican II, and the time between Vatican II and now, is a part of the lower case t tradition of the church. In my view the path forward requires discerning what is good and worth observing from this era, and creating a synthesis with pre-1965 tradition.

I'm going to strenuously disagree here.

There are lots of modern compositions that are both scripturally sound and notmusically banal. It really should be both to keep it in our repertoires. Just like a beautiful piece of music that is scripturally unsound should be thrown out, a musically trite one should either be reset to better music or tossed. There are Mass settings that are obviously scripturally sound (they are, after all the Ordinaries) but are terrible musically.

I'm not talking about music taste here. I'm talking about objectively bad music, which pretty much all the cited examples in the last few posts are. God and the people deserve better.

Chant_Supremacist

Those three are decent hymns. I don't agree with CW that any ought to be called traditional at this point, but I agree they will be someday.

You have to grade hymnody on a curve. It's not meant to be Palestrina (though some of it is incredibly good), it's meant to be culturally vernacular - highly accessible, participatory and popular.

I have an SSPX hymnal, everything in it is at least 100 years old, and it definitely has some trite music in it. Immaculate Mary for instance is trite music. We sing it a couple times a year anyway. It's orthodox and the people like it.

davido

“I am the bread of life” is amateurish schlock. It is simply taking prose scripture verses and stringing them along over a four chord progression. The range of an octave+a fourth is not found in the congregational repertoire output of serious composers.

“Here I am Lord” has a pleasing, singable melody, but the text is vague and rather incoherent. It is deplorable to think of this song as some sort of continuation of the rigorous Christian poetry of the European tradition going back to St Ambrose.
The refrain is a text for priests, not a lay American congregation that will not commit to going anywhere for God, least of all to Mass on a holyday of obligation during the workweek.

MatthewRoth

See I disagree. I like the melody of “I am the bread of life” and love the Proulx arrangement. I get the complaint about the text, but I can’t find myself to get worked up about it after having read Fr. Z on the fact that the sister in question maintained her vocation.

I hate “Here I am Lord.” I don’t find it pleasing (amusing, yes, pleasing no). It might be singable, but it’s schlock, on top of the text, which I do find amusing, because it does remind me of Samuel as well…

fcb

Unlike me, both davido and MatthewRoth seem to know what they're talking about when it comes to music. The fact that they disagree on the musical merits of IAtBoL and HIAL suggests to me that there is some element of subjective taste that needs to be taken into account. Different people really do like different music. I'm not suggesting a free-for-all in which anyone can play their subjective taste as a trump card, but I so think we have to accept that its a card that is in play.

davido

Proulx was a fantastic musician and a gifted composer and arranger. “I am the bread of life” has a certain melodic charm, which linked to its Eucharistic text makes it very popular with Catholics. But it is an amateurish attempt at musical composition.

Taste, like conscience, can be formed. Exposure to fine things forms good taste. We have the attitude these days that technique in reading, writing, arithmetic, and scientific things need to be taught to children, but that art is a matter of taste. If we taught that music is the result of technical skill and not teenage inspiration, we wouldn’t need to have this discussion about amateurish music.

MatthewRoth

Well, some of it is a matter of taste, and therein lies the problem. I know people who sing polyphony but find Palestrina boring. (They grudgingly accept his mastery, but they won’t sing his music very often.) I wouldn’t encourage someone today to write “I am the Bread of Life”, but I’m not going out of my way to cut it from mainstream hymnals. It’s not a great recessional hymn to say the least, so even in my fondness for a few mellow hymns that, in the context of only having one maybe two shots at a vernacular hymn per day, would be stuck as the recessional hymn, I wouldn’t include it if I put together a collection. I think that Americans Catholics should know Newman’s hymns, and “Lead, kindly light” is the kind of thing that my pastor and I would be OK with in November, on a Sunday no less, but SANDON in particular is extraordinarily mellow.

Liam

Yes to LKL+SANDON.

#ToolanBread (First line: I am the bread of life, you can squeeze me to test my freshness - just remember that the refrain was originally penned in the third person, and the verses were designed to be sung by a schola or cantor, not the entire congregation), while perhaps the most enduring of its composer's efforts, should not be assumed to be indicative of its composer's best work. I don't have ready access now to what I encountered from Sr Toolan back in my choral past, but impression remains from that time that she was capable of greater heft than may now be remembered.

Chant_Supremacist

I wonder if part of my slightly 'populist' perspective is that I direct for the TLM exclusively (very occasional NO wedding aside), so in my mind vernacular hymnody is never sung during the mass in any case. This may sound counter-intuitive (shouldn't I have highly rigorous opinions about everything?) but it allows the selection criteria for vernacular hymnody to be explicitly different, and the 'people-pleasing' and more saccharine aspect of it is in itself unproblematic to me, or if anything a relief from more exacting repertoire. I wonder a little if other commenters maybe have a different situation and need to select vernacular hymnody for the mass, so are thinking in different terms.

That's far from a complete explanation, and part of me sometimes just likes to hear everyone singing even if the music/text is of a lower standard.

For full disclosure, I have never programmed any of these three hymns as processional or recessional music or in any other way, because for one I think they're just OK, and for two many of the people intentionally seeking out a TLM probably don't want to hear them.

MatthewRoth

So, I have the same opinion, although I am allergic to both too much Anglophilia and too much saccharine preconciliar stuff (I don’t consider all/most preconciliar, late nineteenth century French vernacular sacred/religious music to be such, but I understand that some Americans feel that way.)

The first is a bit ironic as I accept that the Hymnal 1940 is probably what I need to use as a base if we expand our repertoire of vernacular hymnody and that I do like music like “Angel Voices, Ever Singing” to ANGEL VOICES, which…that voice leading is something, but we have an ambitious congregation. To go back to the French stuff, “Chez nous soyez Reine” is a lot like “I am the Bread of Life”. And yet it’s just the perfect way to end the Chartres pilgrimage.

I am also not 100% against a vernacular communion hymn at the TLM; it’s basically the default in France for better or worse, even if it’s not allowed. (Where polyphony can be done tastefully or at least a four-part SATB hymn in addition to the proper, with verses even, it should be privileged!)

Diapason84

If "I am the Bread of Life" is the only hymn that people remember compared with other of Sister Suzanne's output since 1970, consider it a blessing.

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