What is a Catholic Hymn?
  • Don9of11Don9of11
    Posts: 809
    Over the past year I’ve been working on two small projects that grew out of my decades singing in the choir at St. Mary’s Parish in Akron, Ohio. The first is a brief pastoral outline called What Is a Catholic Hymn?, written to clarify the characteristics that traditionally shape Catholic hymnody. The second is a Parish Hymnody Study based on every hymn sung in my parish both past and present. Both documents are descriptive rather than prescriptive, and they’re offered simply as resources for anyone interested in how devotional and traditional hymnody functioned in an ordinary parish setting. I’m sharing them here in case they’re useful for discussion or comparison with your own parish experience.

    https://www.motherofmercycatholichymns.com/what-is-a-catholic-hymn/
    Thanked by 7davido DavidOLGC francis Roborgelmeister CHGiffen oldhymns Felicia
  • francis
    Posts: 11,296
    An interesting perspective.

    In our parish, we do not include vernacular hymns within the mass, only hymns in Latin, taking up your idea that it must be universal. We do include vernacular hymns before and after mass. Do you have any further thoughts on this approach? Does your article address the TLM, the Novus Ordo or both?
    Thanked by 2Don9of11 CHGiffen
  • Don9of11Don9of11
    Posts: 809
    Thank you for your thoughtful reflection. My work on defining and studying Catholic hymnody really grows out of the Ordinary Form, since that is the parish world that formed me—I began first grade in 1966, so my musical and liturgical life unfolded within the early years of the reformed Mass.

    At St. Mary’s, where I sang in the choir, we occasionally used Latin hymns at the Offertory and Communion, but only at one Mass and only once a month, simply as a way of keeping older traditions alive within the rhythm of parish life. Because of that background, my focus has been on how hymnody serves prayer in the Novus Ordo rather than on comparing different forms of the Mass.

    My hope is simply to clarify how hymns can be understood and used well in the Ordinary Form, where so many of us first learned to pray through music.

    edited

    In my own parish experience, Latin was already a living part of the Ordinary Form—woven into the monthly sung Mass and carried by a choir that tried to preserve the older traditions with care—so my reflections come from that kind of setting rather than from comparing different forms of the Mass.
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen Roborgelmeister oldhymns
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