Can I use the English books on this website with the new Missal?
  • amindthatsuits
    Posts: 860
    I have scanned over previous posts, and see some recurrent themes here: one is people of varying abilities and education looking for answers, and the other is far too many "well, duh" answers. Yes, an MA in choral music would be nice, but I cannot afford the $15k a semester it would cost at my own school, which has a superb sacred music program, and so I take voice lessons at $50 a pop and use the library to study, at which many have noted I am quite good. Jeff T. deliberately posted something on the Simple Choral Gradual and felt constrained to start with "no need to jump on him."

    You don't get a second question from someone if you jump on them for asking the first.

    I am looking at this from the person that is often described here, the panicked local music leader.

    So I actually read GIRM, or receive some instruction from the diocesan curia, and I discover first of all that we should have been saying, at least, the entrance and communion antiphons, but we haven't. So OK. Then the words 'hymn' and 'song' are nowhere to be found, so we are supposed to chant the antiphons, and they are supposed to last the whole procession in both cases. I just got back from Labor Day with the kids to find that the pastor wants to introduce the new Missal with 'something big' because he is a JPII generation priest and has been looking for the opportunity to regularize the liturgy.

    Hmm.

    So I spend about 15 minutes trying to answer one question on the internet. Having in hand the new Missal would be nice, but we haven't gotten them and the ones to purchase online are expensive and back ordered. Nor can I find a website with the info that I want. I find my way to musicasacra.com and have a lot of fun following links and looking over things. I go through the English Chant books in something like desperation. I find the SEP and the SCG. One tells me the translations are taken from the books at a place called Solemes, which produced this really cool CD I listen to at night, and the other references the 1985 Roman Missal, but frankly sounds as if the translations are the composers own. My pastor is emphatic that all new material must follow the new Missal. I poke around this discussion list and am still stumped.

    Can I use these books? It sounds as if, under GIRM, I need specific approval if I want to. My pastor doesn't know music very well, but he knows how to read the GIRM.

    What do I do? So--even though I have seen way too many "well, duh" answers but am confident that no one really knows who I am--I venture to ask this discussion board. And the answer would be???

    Kenneth
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,220
    The Simple Choral Gradual antiphon texts are from the old edition of the Roman Missal, so they're approved already. That approval will remain even when the new Missal goes into use.

    If your pastor is concerned about getting specific approval for SEP, he can ask the diocesan office for worship to be sure. The texts there are at least as legit as the songs in the missal booklets from the Big Publishers.

    For another option, the GIRM lets you chant the antiphon texts from the new Roman Missal; you can set them to a psalm tone or a melody of your own composition. Add psalm verses from any approved translation.

    You can also use seasonal propers from the Graduale Simplex; the English version is published with musical settings in the book "By Flowing Waters". The bishops' conference liturgy committee approved it some years ago.
  • amindthatsuits
    Posts: 860
    Now THAT is an answer I can take to the parish council. Many thanks.

    Implied in my question was an assumption that the antiphons have been retranslated. That need not be the case; the English L. of the Hours uses different translations for the psalms and the antiphons that come from the text! The GIRM in any case allows alterations to fite meter, etc.

    Implied in your answer is that the new Missal supercedes ONLY the old Missal, and all other approve texts are still licit. Is that the case?

    With that answered, there is plenty to satisfy my pastor. Many thanks again.
  • JennyJenny
    Posts: 147
    Thank you, chonak, for this clear and simple explanation. It will come in quite handy when I try to explain this to others.
  • amindthatsuits
    Posts: 860
    A hearty Amen, Jenny.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,220
    Yes, Kenneth; only the Missal is being replaced now; other liturgical books (Graduale Simplex; LOTH; the Rites) will be revised eventually.

    There is a sort of loophole that works in your favor: for spoken texts, you must use the currently approved liturgical books only. But the rules for sung psalms and antiphons, if I understand them correctly, only require that the texts were approved at some time, not necessarily that they be from the latest approved edition. This avoids any need to throw out, for example, all the Responsorial Psalm settings when the Lectionary is updated. I'm following this rule when I say that the old Missal texts will remain approved.
  • Andrew_Malton
    Posts: 1,189
    This seems to mean that we can go on singing old settings of the ordinary (Gloria, Lamb of God, Holy Holy) if they were previously approved. I. Don't. Think. So.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,220
    Those examples don't fit into the category of psalms and antiphons.
  • SanAntonioCath
    Posts: 77
    I was curious about this question regarding the settings done by Fr. Samuel Weber. On Dec 22, I wrote to the USCCB Secretariat and asked if this piece can be sung at our school Masses (I attend a Catholic college):

    http://dvoss.kenrickparish.com/downloads/index.php?file=XMAS%20Epiph.pdf

    I included the PDF with my E-mail, and noted that this piece does not have any type of ecclesiastical approval. Monsignor Hilgartner kindly replied (Wed, Dec 28, 2011 at 1:00 PM), and informed me that no permission is necessary to sing this piece at Mass, in spite of its lack of approval.

    I was also curious as to whether the ICEL version of the "Our Father" could be sung at Masses in the USA (a question asked on this forum). On December 3rd, I wrote to ICEL asking if they had submitted this piece for approval in the United States. ICEL indicated (Wed, Dec 7, 2011 at 8:57 AM) that they had not submitted this piece and had no intention of doing so. I then wrote to the USCCB Secretariat of Divine Worship, and the anser was given (Mon, Dec 12, 2011 at 8:19 AM) that this type of piece does not require any type of approval for use in the United States of America.

    I was somewhat puzzled by these responses, but I do see that Gregorian chant has an "automatic approval" :
    http://musicasacra.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=5601
  • benedictgal
    Posts: 798
    @SanAntonioCath

    I am curious as to what Fr. Lucatero's take on this is. He is the director of worship for the Archdiocese of San Antonio. He used to be ours down here.

    For the better part of six months, I have been using the SEP at my dad's parish. It has turned out rather well. The thing that is somewhat perplexing, at least as far as I am concerned, it is the fact that no one seems to bat an eye when parishes use questionable music like "Gather Us In", "I, Myself am the Bread of Life" and "Come to the Feast"; but, when it comes to the Propers, there are some who will throw a nutty about their usage.
  • mahrt
    Posts: 517
    The text of the SEP is taken from the Gregorian Missal; these texts are translations of the Graduale Romanum, for which no official translation has ever been provided (except those that are also included in the Missal, which are for spoken use); therefore, there is no problem in using them for sung performance.
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    Thanks, Prof. Mahrt, for reminding us that we've been on this merry-go-round before herein. That gives us a chance to get the bull's nose ring into the clown's mouth again, to whit- though I and many others stand upon Mahrt's interpretation directly above, the issue of SEP's constitutionally passing muster as Option Four (as repugnant that may in comparison as heeded by "others" not of our ilk) works quite nicely as a defense, if need be.
  • SanAntonioCath
    Posts: 77
    benedictgal,

    I am not sure, since I don't know that priest. I am only home in San Antonio for the break. Normally, I am away at a Catholic college in the Midwest.

    I also notice that the Conception Abbey GIA Revised Grail Psalter Copyright Notice is more liberal than the GREP.
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