Centralized Resource for Weekday Mass Propers?
  • Nisi
    Posts: 146
    There are so many fine sets of Propers in English now, but I find it almost impossible to keep track of them in an organized fashion. Fr. Weber, R. Rice, and many others. I'm sure there are also sets which I've never heard of. Does anyone know a centralized place for musicians and clergy to look? A priest recently asked me how to find the music for an offertory antiphon for a weekday, ferial Mass, and I told him I'd need at least a day to find one, if not having to compose one myself! Wouldn't it be wonderful if there were a collaborative website which at least listed the texts for the Entrance, Psalm, Alleluia verse, Offertory & Communion Antiphon, if not links to musical settings of them? I know that translations are an additional issue, but various ones could be given to choose from (vel alius cantus aptus, after all!). We seem to be living in a world now which is often singing (or having someone sing them, more often) Minor Propers at weekday Masses. I know three traditional high schools which sing the propers of Sunday, in English or Latin, at weekday Masses, very often not observing proper texts of the day. A webpage such as this would make it possible, in their very busy lives, to come closer to an accuracy of texts.
  • MarkB
    Posts: 1,025
    Besides Volume 1 of The Proper of the Mass, not many people seem to be aware that Fr. Weber has completed Volumes 2 and 3, which provide music for propers for weekdays and feastdays of saints.

    Downloads of Volumes 2 and 3 are available here:
    https://www.ccwatershed.org/2020/10/22/pdf-download-mass-propers-for-weekdays-commons-and-saints-1294-pages/

    You can also order hardbound, printed books via Lulu:
    Volume 2:
    https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/fr-samuel-f-weber-osb/proper-of-the-mass-volume-ii/hardcover/product-1jw5ek7v.html?page=1&pageSize=4

    Volume 3:
    https://www.lulu.com/en/us/shop/fr-samuel-f-weber-osb/the-propers-of-the-mass-volume-iii/hardcover/product-mz8wpd.html?page=1&pageSize=4
    Thanked by 3Nisi CHGiffen hilluminar
  • davido
    Posts: 873
    While such a site would be useful, the complicated copyright permissions of ICEL and the USCCB prevent the texts from being freely available and such a site being compiled.

    However, the readings and antiphons etc can be found in such sites as iBreviary, USCCB daily readings, and other sites of that sort.

    As recently lamented on this forum, there is no database cross referencing liturgical texts, particular responsorial psalms, between the Sunday and weekday sources. This makes it difficult to find where musical settings for the weekend may be proper to weekday masses.

    As MarkB points out, Fr Weber’s three volume set contains everything you need for entrance, offertory, and communion chants. Ferial days in ordinary time use the prior Sunday’s propers, and all the sanctoral and proper of time feasts can be found in vols 2 and 3.

    There is no complete collection of weekday psalms set to music, to my knowledge.
    Thanked by 1Nisi
  • Nathan_the_Organist
    Posts: 434
    Another vote here for Fr Weber's set. I bought volumes 2 and 3, and they are definitely worth it.
    Thanked by 1Nisi
  • lmassery
    Posts: 404
    I just looked on ignatius press and could not find volumes 2 and 3. Only vol one popped up and his compline book.
    Edit- nevermind it’s on lulu but unfindable without the direct link above
    Thanked by 1Nisi
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