I like it very much! I grant that points of all the critics, but....it is still a wonderful achievement! To me it is an amazing thing that it has taken this many years to get the first edition of a sung breviary out there. what a world.

I am delighted that the Mundelein Psalter is being found useful.
I wish so much we could use it on the rare occasions when our parish does LotH.
But I use it personally, and really find my prayer life enriched by it.

(Save the Liturgy, save the World)

We were just talking about the Mundelein Psalter at schola rehearsal this week. Tx for the positive comments. I'll be sure to give it a whirl.

Someone told me of a confirmation group of 75 kids who sang 'compline' from the Mundelein Psalter & in
the same night, a guest group sang compline from the LU. They knew the kids where listening 'cause of the
tremendous rustle of pages turning!

I agree that the absence of antiphons is a serious shortcoming. However, for domestic use or with a crowd of untrained singers, antiphons could be intimidating. I suppose the problem could be remedied in parish use with a separate "antiphonale," used by a schola/choir.

I have a question about the hymns in the Mundelein Psalter. It's my understanding that the hymns are taken from the Latin Liturgy of the Hours, with english translations to fit the melodies which are identical to the ones in the Liber Hymnarius. Is this correct? Does this book contain all of the hymns which you would find in the Liber Hymnarius for Lauds, Vespers, and Compline, in Ordinary Time, and for each Season, for both the Proper of Seasons and Proper of the Saints, as well as the Commons?

I agree with Jeffrey that the hymns are buried - and that they should be published separately. Imagine singing these instead of wanna-be Broadway ballads.

The Mundelein Psalter just hasn't been able to "get traction," as they say. Why? I don't know. The established position of the Meinrad tones for English post-VII psalmody with professional liturgists and diocesan worship offices? The price of the book? Musical objections to the tones and the lack of separate melodies for the antiphons? It appears to be too simple for some critics; too complex for others.

In other words, right now it is only the specialists who are weighing in. Of course they will be critical. It needs a broader audience.

I think this what the folks who put together the Mundelein Psalter hoped for. In addition to providing a vehicle for sung prayer in seminaries, they wanted "lay use." And everyone knows the shortcomings of "Christian Prayer" - four-line psalm tones in the back of the book, a poor selection of hymns, and confusing directions for anyone who isn't a devotee of liturgical handbooks.

And I think Jeffrey is right about distribution - only the crabby experts have copies of this book. I'm not sure I've ever seen it in a Catholic bookstore (maybe in Chicago?). How it could be successfully promoted and distributed online is outside my expertise. I don't think LTP has much interest in the book - at least not on a sustained basis. And one priest-liturgist of my acquaintance grumped that, "It was just Cardinal George's ego trip."

Maybe LTP will come to their senses, put the item in CC copyright, and have the CMAA or Corpus Christi Watershed distribute it. Think of how thousands of dreary retreat experiences could be improved, youth group meetings, etc.

I have also been using the Mundelein Psalter since it came out. My wife and I use it personally everyday to chant at least MP together. I have used it several times in parish or other settings such as EPII in Advent and Friday Vespers in Lent. I used to play the tones before each psalm, canticle, etc, but I stopped doing that. They are simple enough that people catch on. My biggest issue is what everyone else has mentioned. The book is big and relatively expensive. There is no way I am going to get my parish to shell out enough money for 20 copies. I also find that the flipping required for Advent and Lent is a real problem for people. I took to putting out a 'guide' sheet, with page numbers and ribbon colors (I set up up each psalter before the service.).

What I've learned so far is to simply have one other person (my wife in this case) present to help the other half of the group. Then we just begin as we would if there were only two of us. People listen for a verse or two and then join in. If I try to give a quick tutorial before we start, or play the psalm tones as I noted above, the prayerfulness just gets lost.

I've begun using the same tones (Meinrad) to chant the Benediction prayer and the Divine Praises. (We end Adoration with Vespers and Benediction.)

Richard

It seems to me that the Mundelein Psalter needs to be available in a "Pew Edition" consisting of antiphons and psalms and canticles and not much else since this is the only material most people would need to have in front of them. People who are not leading prayer would be able to participate in, or follow, the readings, responsories and intercessions without having them in front of them. They would need the psalm texts though and that is what should be provided to them.

The psalms in a pew edition could be listed in numeric order , i.e. Psalm 1, Psalm 2, etc.. The antiphons for different celebrations could be listed in a series of headers above each psalm. If necessary, psalms could be printed more than once with different psalm tones and different pointing to allow for greater variety. Three ribbons could be provided to allow people to mark the psalms and canticle to be used. Such a volume would surely run no more than a few hundred pages, considerably less than the 1300 page Mundelein Psalter. That should reduce both bulk and cost.

Come to think of it, maybe what is really needed is a site similar to the Chabanel Resonsorial Psalm Project but focused on the psalms, canticles and antiphons of the Liturgy of the Hours. The Mundelein Psalter could then be used by by celebrants to lead the other parts of the office (readings, responsories, intercessions, prayer), but the psalms and canticles could be drawn as required from the psalter website, printed out and distributed to the people for singing.

I agree with mjballou especially in her second paragraph. I am often amused by the contortions our liturgy committee goes through whenever they attempt to conduct a vespers service. By the time they are finished folding, spindling, adapting and mutilating the service, it often bears little resemblance to the Liturgy of the Hours. Typically, for instancce, psalmody is replaced with hymnody.

I think there are two reasons that so many liturgists struggle with the liturgy of the hours. The first is that few people, including many accomplished liturgical musicians, know how to do psalmody anymore. Not knowing how to do psalmody, they inevitably cast about for alternatives to the psalms. Typically, they fall back on hymns that may or may not have anything to do with the psalms they supplant. In fact, in general, I have found that the prescribed texts of the LOTH are ignored in favor of texts selected by the organizers of the liturgy, texts that are then arranged in an order that roughly follows the structure of the Liturgy of the Hours. In my mind, howerver, what we end up with, as nice as it may be, cannot really be called the Liturgy of the Hours.

The second reason many liturgists struggle with the liturgy of the hours is that the Sunday mass has become the paradigm for all liturgical celebrations. When many liturgists attempt to put together a vespers service, they automatically try to make it as complicated and as sophisticated as a Sunday Mass. The swap out psalms and substitute hymns that are familiar but musically more ornate: they wouldn't think of attempting a vespers service without a full choir. They add ceremony in the form of pomp and circumstance and symbols that are nice but not required. They end up putting an enormous amount of energy into each and every celebration of the LOTH and therefore end up doing very few of them.

I think this misses the point of the Liturgy of the Hours. The Liturgy of the Hours is meant to be celebrated daily or at least frequently. In order to be able to do that realistically, it needs to be kept simple. I like to use the following analogies. If Sunday Mass is like the larger family meals that many families have on weekends, meals which often include extended family and friends and other members of the community, the Liturgy of the Hours is like the weekday meals that we have in the midst of a busy life, meals often eaten with only our most immediate family and closest friends and often even some of these are missing (this is not a matter of being exclusive it's just the way life is). The weekend family meal needs to be more elaborate, include more dishes and more settings at table, be more festive and they take more time at table than do daily daily meals. They also require more preparation. Weekday meals, on the other hand, need to be simple, nutritious and satisfying, and they need to be easily and quickly prepared and require less time at table.

As with weekday meals, so it is with the Liturgy of the Hours. If the LOTH is to be celebrated frequently it can't possibly be as complex as are Sunday Masses and that shouldn't be the target we are aiming for. If you want to be able to celebrate the liturgy of the Hours regularly you need to keep it simple. Adapt only when there is a real and obvious reason for doing so. Whatever you do, don't think you have to re-invent the wheel for every celebration. Keep to the texts prescribed and use simple musical settings that can be learned and used on the spot. Out communities need to relearn the art of psalmody, become familiar with psalm tones and use psalm tones of whatever variety suits them - gregorian (adapted or otherwise) or St. Meinrad's or Gelineau - whatever works. Just keep it simple. This doesn't mean there is no room for occasional elaborate celebrations of the Liturgy of the Hours. These are surely appropriate for major feasts and solemnities. But typically the celebration of the LOTH needs to be kept simple. If done in a parish, it should not be thought of as something that is only successful when the whole parish turns out for it. It should be thought of as something that the parish does often, even daily, and that any parishioner is welcome to attend. Whoever shows up, shows up: whoever doesn't, doesn't. It's still a work of the parish and the parish has still glorified God through it.

With respect to mjballou's third paragraph, I agree with that also. I am certainly grateful whenever clergy are available and interested in participating in and leading the Liturgy of the Hours, but my experience has been that laity cannot count on this. Clergy are busy enough and are seldom interested in assuming yet another duty (That is not a discredit to them: they really are that busy). This is something the laity will have to embrace for themselves and they may need to form associations in order to do so. In any event, there is something fitting about celebrating the LOTH in the midst of life rather than just in parishes and somewhat apart from life. Laity should be looking for opportunities to pray the LOTH with co-workers, neighbors and friends, in their homes, in their communities and at their workplaces. It could also be a real service of the laity for the often overburdened clergy. If we can assume the responsibility for organizing the celebration of the LOTH in our parishes and require the clergy only to show up and lead celebrations, perhaps we can do something to help sustain and invigorate and strengthen our clergy.

Also, according to this page, each week has the same psalm tone? It seems reasonable that we non-musicians would be able to pick it up?

Oh, and one more thing: Benedictus/Magnificat and Pater Noster chanted in Latin.

The Mundelein Psalter would probably be somewhat cheaper if it were printed outside the US.

LTP's FAQ for the Psalter goes out of its way to say that the contents should not be copied. Among other reasons given, this is supposedly so that the people should sing from books of a suitable quality for the liturgy!

While I agree with Jeffrey's argument that it should be posted online, for liturgy, printed books offer some kind of unspoken dignity. At the very least, it helps institutionalize.

For that reason, while many, many texts are available for download on CMAA, I persist, to my wife's dismay, on purchasing whatever I can get my hands on! Example: both downloading, AND PURCHASING, Rice's amazing books! I could see what I was buying, and I liked it, so I bought it! (And if our schola takes off, many future copies!)

But asking again:

What do you think about this:

The Mundelein Psalter in the hands of the leaders.
Christian Prayers in the hands of the people.

To me, it seems the Psalm tones would be easy for the people to pick up without music NOR pointing? Has anyone done this?

When people talk about buying pew editions of the Mundelein Psalter, I think they're often thinking in terms of having several in each pew.

Unless your experience with the Liturgy of the Hours in parishes is far better than mine, I don't think we're talking about those numbers. Fr. Jeffrey Keyes, C.PP.S. has been successful in implementing Morning and Evening Prayer (combining the latter with Adoration) and his numbers run about 15-25.
Maybe a couple of cases would do the job for many parishes.

I agree about the dignity of books for worship, living as I do in the land of the newsprint throwaways. And I'm not overly fond of pamphlets put together by the church office. Some parishes have someone with the flair and the time; many don't.

But, LTP doesn't really seem to care if anyone uses these books of theirs - just so long as they don't copy them.

What if the dignity of a book means that it is kept offline or that it is too expensive for people to buy? I have mixed feelings about this. I love the PBC because it is so great in its binding etc. but look at the financial risk involved and inventory costs. It is not viable to do this with more than one or two books -- at least for us. In the meantime, isn't it more urgent that the material get out there? our weekly liturgy programs don't have much inherent "dignity" in their intrinsic properties but they are pretty. Does dignity always have to mean hardback and acid-free paper? I know that we all prefer fancy to throw away but is there really a liturgical imperative here? I'm thinking of several books that remain completely obscure solely due to this dignity point, such as the sung Missal in English, which is nearly unaffordable. A cheap edition could be made but the author/publisher refuses. I'm not sure that dignity is worth it if the price is near non-existence, if you know what I mean.

The new encyclical speaks of non-material and cultural obstacles to development, and one of them is in excessive claims of intellectual property:

Para 22: "...On the part of rich countries there is excessive zeal for protecting knowledge through an unduly rigid assertion of the right to intellectual property, "