Agreed frogman. First, emphasizing the English is rather normal for EF materials. The Baronius Missal, arguably the most widely used, does this to an even greater degree. Second, using english from even the new translation of the RM2002 would have been rather undesirable for this audience, to say the least.

Earl_Grey, the St. Michael hymnal certainly has what you're looking for. It contains "Gift of Finest Wheat" and "On Eagles' Wings", to name a couple of contemporary selections. I would say at least 75% if not more of the hymns are the beautiful, traditional hymns (with unaltered texts!) that you're talking about, but it does have around 20 more contemporary selections, and I'm using that as a "selling point" if you will to get it into our parish. Also, it just has a really great selection. I have been able to find so many hymns that were either in Adoremus but not in OCP, in OCP but not Adoremus, and also ones that I just haven't found anywhere else period. It also contains quite a number of both English and Latin Mass settings, including Jubilate Deo as you mentioned, the ICEL chants, and others. Extra bonuses are the Order of Mass (Latin and English on facing pages), entrance antiphons with music for all Sundays, Holy Days, and some other feasts as well, "service music" which includes the chants for the sprinkling rite in both Latin and English options, a reasonable amount of Spanish music if you have that situation at your parish, and some lovely prayers in the back of the book. IMHO, it's a really good choice for parishes that are just not capable/willing/ready to go to Adoremus or Vatican II.

I've been following this discussion with great interest. For those among you looking for a Catholic hymnal with faithful theology and the finest blend of traditional and contemporary, I would suggest that you visit www.SaintAugustineHymnal.com. ILP (International Liturgy Publications) is the publisher of "Gift of Finest Wheat," "Alleluia No. 1" and many other widely sung contemporary titles. With more than 90 composers and authors in its cadre, ILP has compiled a hymnal that includes the best of the old and new. Please take note of the preface as you page through the digital edition online; it features the ten principles upon which the Saint Augustine Hymnal has been created.

On a related note: ILP welcomes submissions from quality composers of Catholic sacred music. Presently, we are inviting submissions of well-composed settings for the Propers.

On yet another note: I humbly invite the publishers of other faithful hymnals and Catholic sacred music compilations to contact me. Perhaps we should be discussing collaborative projects rather than working toward the same cause in a fragmented fashion.

In the service of God's love,

Vince Ambrosetti
Publisher, ILP

This group has improved tremendously since the day that Vince wrote:

When this forum returns to respectful, charitable, intelligent discourse, I will return.

Now, personally, I thought we were still disrespectful, uncharitable and stupid, but Vince seems to feel we've grown up.

[Document reference key:
SC - Sacrosanctum Concilium
TLS - Tra Le Sollecitudini
DMS - De Musica Sacra]

This hymnal is being hailed as new and great, but I'm finding that the more I look at it, it is really much of the same sub-par, theologically shaky music that we've been getting from GIA and OCP for years. Some good hymns and a lot of other music not really suitable for Mass. Some may like that music, fine, but if that's the case, you can just get the same things from the other major publishers. Simply from a neutral standpoint, I don't see the draw of this hymnal over Worship or RitualSong or an OCP subscription.

You also state that you are trying to use the hermeneutic of continuity. However, so many of the songs seem to have a great influx of protestant ideas about the Mass. Lots of talk about "us" and about "us gathering around the table," (It's an altar, for pete sake) and about "us" doing this & that, or "us" loving everyone.

The sound of most of the songs also strikes me as very secular sounding, musically. The liturgy is supposed to be a heavenly action, and the style of music we use is (supposed to be) separated from that of "real life" for that very reason. It's supposed to be different.

Does anyone see the sharp contrast between the beauty of one of these texts, and the sing-songy triteness of the other?

The angelic bread becomes the bread of men; The heavenly bread
ends all prefigurations: What wonder! The Lord is eaten by a poor and humble servant.
Triune God, We beg of you: visit us, just as we worship you. By your ways, lead us here we are heading, to the light in which you dwell. Amen.

Here we will take the wine and the water,
here we will take the bread of new birth.
Here you shall call your sons and your daughters,
call us anew to be salt for the earth.
Give us to drink the wine of compassion,
give us to eat the bread that is you.
Nourish us well, and teach us to fashion
lives that are holy and hearts that are true.

In Pope Pius' motu proprio on sacred music, he's combating many of the one of the same things we are dealing with today: the influx of "religious music" being passed off as "liturgical music," which is a serious problem. [DMS 10, 20, 54]
[Correction: that was the 1956 document De Musica Sacra, not TLS.]

You also state that we need new music in the church. There's a few things I'd like to respond with:

1) First, you proclaim a great love of our past sacred music. We all do here. But I must ask bluntly: if it is important to you, why have you deviated so far from it in style, in content, and have included next to nothing of it? For someone who loves it, it sure feels to be ignored in this hymnal.

2) All of the church documents demand that gregorian chant and classic polyphony be given pride of place in all liturgical services [SC 116]. Considering most churches only use one hymnal, how does this hymnal help bring us back to that ideal? Part of the wonderful parts of the church is the fact that it is slow to change. When it is slow to change, things are thought out and done well. When things are changed quickly (Vatican II), chaos erupts. By publishing a hymnal that contains music from only the last 50 years or so (2.5% of the church's history), doesn't that seem to be more of the quick-change side of things? It's hardly in the hermeneutic of continuity to throw out all that music from the past and publish this with all new music, considering that most parishes only buy one hymnal.

3) New music is a good thing. But bad new music is not. Why not publish new music that is more suitable for the sacred liturgy? We have so much GOOD new music to draw from. We've got Adam Bartlett, Kevin Allen, Richard Rice, Aristotle Esguerra, all writing and arranging NEW music. But not just generic NEW music, NEW sacred music, NEW liturgical music. Keep this principal in mind for new music: the closer it is in spirit and in style to gregorian chant, the more suitable it is for the sacred liturgy [TLS 3.2]. Even pieces that have secular sounding motifs should not be played [TLS 5.2]

We don't need more of the spirit of Vatican II. That's gotten us in enough trouble already. We need more of the letter of Vatican II, the letter that asks us to celebrate the Mass in latin frequently [SC 36], the letter that requests that the people of God know the ordinary of the Mass in latin, including the chat Masses, so that they can USE them [SC 54], the same letter that says our past treasury of sacred music should be used [SC 112, 114], and the same letter that calls the organ (and no other instrument) an instrument to be held in high esteem [SC 120]. To quote someone I admire, the spirit of VII is a demon that needs to be exercised from the church while we start following the letter.

I don't mean to be uncharitable, only honest: to me, it seems that the St. Augustine hymnal does none of these things for the church. We are much better off with something like the VII hymnal. Yes, it's not perfect, but no hymnal will be.

And as Frogman said, how much contemporary music do you see from 1912 do you see being used in churches today?

Ben, well said....but, I thought we'd all agreed to ignore the subject of chat masses...texting being such a controversial thing right now....FB at mass, tacky.

What about either:

1. A PDF Template/ printable hymnal/missal that could be printed by whatever interval desired, either weekly, monthly, or seasonally.

2. Or, a reusable, seasonable missallette. This could be the same as the popular missallettes but put together in a such a way as to be reusable, ie. without specific dates. It would be a sort of hand missal but cut up into swallowable and navigable doses.

2 sounds really useful. You mean something like Advent-Christmas, Ordinary Time, Lent-Easter?

The only problem I'd anticipate with that is how Easter is moveable, so they'd have to be switched out from Ordinary time, to Christmas, to Ordinary time, to Easter, back to Ordinary time. I can't see my parish volunteers being interested in swapping everything out every few months like that.

1 could drain paper resources, and what about binding, and maintaining them each time? Can we count on people to leave them in the pews, in useable shape ... or more challenging, to return me to the table by the door where they were picked up?

Good thoughts.

If this gets organized toward whatever goal(s), I will be happy to help out however possible.