Good ideas. Somehow, folks need to be convinced the proper chants are worth the time and effort.

One thing that I've mentioned to people is the fact that we would never dare to say that Father could just make prayers up during Mass. There's a big red book on the altar that tells him exactly what to do/say. Same goes for the readings. SallySue doesn't get to just flip open her devotionals and read whatever strikes her mood. It is prescribed.

And yet: there is a third collection of texts that is also prescribed—the propers. And we ignore them as though they aren't as integral as the other two (and as though the GIRM doesn't directly recommend their use as option i).

Most people have no idea what the propers are or that they even exist. Chant is a nebulous thing that "used to be" sung at church. They don't realize that the texts are (even in the novus ordo!) just as prescribed as the other two.

I think that there is room for the propers to exist alongside other music (notably, hymns). But they certainly shouldn't be ignored. We sing an entrance hymn and then chant the Fr. Weber introit after the priest gets to the altar. We start every communion with the antiphon and some verses, and then add a motet if the choir is there, and finally end that time with a hymn which may or may not be sung in its entirety. But the propers are not ignored. (Increasingly, I include offertorios as well; just depends on the timing of things.)

There does at least seem to be a notable resurgence in interest and use of proper antiphons in recent years. Between 1970 and, well, maybe a decade ago, propers were practically nonexistent in ordinary parish NO Masses in my experience. Now it seems much more common. So that's progress.

Like @ServiamScores, I'm in the "choose all" camp (i.e. propers, hymns, motets, and organ all have a place). For our principal Mass of Sunday, which always includes full use of incense, we sing a hymn first at the procession (often just one verse), then the entrance antiphon (usually English from Source & Summit, special occasions might get the full GR introit in Latin) with verses as needed. At the Offertory, I chant the Offertorio from the GR in Latin (myself now, but I'm developing a schola slowly but surely), followed by a hymn. At Communion, we start with the English antiphon and usually 3 verses, followed by a motet or hymn, usually concluding with 2-3 minutes of organ improv during ablutions. And, with a few exceptions for certain feast days, we always conclude Mass with the seasonal Marian antiphon in place of a recessional hymn.

Truth be told, at some point I'll likely nix the entrance hymn in favor of focusing more on the antiphons. But one step at a time. At least we've moved well away from the standard-fare four-hymn-sandwich!

My approach would not be the all or nothing approach, nor does the GIRM take that approach. Rather, it would seem the GIRM offers choices at least in part for the process of discernment over time. Any licit choice that the PIPs in regular parishes have been deprived of (forever or a long time since, as it were), hasn't been properly discerned out of proper consideration. Prudence and wisdom, enthusiasm and skill, tact and humility - all needed.

Like @ServiamScores, I'm in the "choose all" camp (i.e. propers, hymns, motets, and organ all have a place). For our principal Mass of Sunday, which always includes full use of incense, we sing a hymn first at the procession (often just one verse), then the entrance antiphon (usually English from Source & Summit, special occasions might get the full GR introit in Latin) with verses as needed. At the Offertory, I chant the Offertorio from the GR in Latin (myself now, but I'm developing a schola slowly but surely), followed by a hymn. At Communion, we start with the English antiphon and usually 3 verses, followed by a motet or hymn, usually concluding with 2-3 minutes of organ improv during ablutions. And, with a few exceptions for certain feast days, we always conclude Mass with the seasonal Marian antiphon in place of a recessional hymn.

We are broadly similar, but with slight seasonal variations. During Lent this year we only did introits, no entrance hymn. High feast days I'll pepper in latin antiphons. During Eastertide I've normalized singing the Regina Caeli every week to begin the offertory, and then transition to something else. We generally still have all four hymns, but there have been serious discussions about restoring the leonine prayers and simply doing the marian antiphon and an organ recessional at the end of Mass. We'll see.

Regardless, in four different parishes now, I've discovered that propers can coexist quite happily alongside hymns. I think one of the reasons I've had success is simply because I added them without taking things away. It's trivial to add a 30 second introit before or after the hymn. It's an absolute no-brainer to sing the communion antiphon—even in the vernacular. That is suuuuuuper low hanging fruit. I firmly believe Fr. Weber is the answer here. (yes, yes, I know... missal vs. GR antiphons...) but really, it's the perfect solution for vernacular-only parishes. There are gradations of difficulty, and some of the harder ones imitate the originals very nicely. I think every parish should introduce his communios, if nothing else.

Grew up with only propers or nothing; hymns only during stations, May crowning and benediction vespers. Foreshadowing VCII the Latin dialogue Low Mass began using 4 hymns. Even as an 8 yr old I found the regular metered tempo cringey at Mass. I liked Low Mass better with silence- you could always enjoy the daily air raid sirens from the missile site across the meadow.

I would not be afraid of using introits alone or the communion alone, even if they too brief: because silence is always appropriate.

As much as I would love the all or nothing camp, I think that's not a practical way to unteach decades of people not singing the propres and so not knowing what they are. Introducing them bit by bit, probably starting with the offertory or communion antiphons, is best, imo. Though it requires full support of the parish priest. Without that, you got nothing, unfortunately.

In a prosperous near-west suburb of Milwaukee, the new-ish pastor has introduced use of the (English) Introit and Communio. The Offertory 'hymn' has been displaced by a refrain/verse item. On occasion, a Latin Kyrie (de Angelis) is used. He also introduced the Latin Marian antiphons, sung following the Communion and before the prayer to St Michael.

The Introit proper is sung before the entrance hymn. Works very well. The Communio is sung before the communion hymn.

FWIW, when your singers use English, PLEASE teach them how to articulate it so that it can be understood by the plebes--especially if using microphones (yes, I am familiar with the arguments about that.) Hearing mush is just like hearing it in Mandarin.....

I was just listening to the requiem propers on my drive to work yesterday morning and became even more convinced they need to make a regular comeback. I find Catholic English Mass funerals to be too much of an escapism from death, dying, etc. I think we need to learn how to mourn again at funerals

O yes... this!

* A linguistics expert in this century used the metaphor that goes something like this: English has for centuries pursued and hunted down other languages in dark alleys to make them yield up more words and usages for English speakers and writers. IOW, English is a thug for vocabulary.

In a similar vein, I've heard English described as three languages in a trenchcoat, pretending to be a language, a la cartoon of kids trying to sneak into a movie theatre.

Within the context of the Novus Ordo Mass, to state that the proper chants "should" be heard at every Mass goes beyond the text of Vatican II and the GIRM. Regarding the Entrance Chant, the GIRM states:

47. When the people are gathered, and as the Priest enters with the Deacon and ministers, the Entrance Chant begins. Its purpose is to open the celebration, foster the unity of those who have been gathered, introduce their thoughts to the mystery of the liturgical time or festivity, and accompany the procession of the Priest and ministers.

48. This chant is sung alternately by the choir and the people or similarly by a cantor and the people, or entirely by the people, or by the choir alone. In the Dioceses of the United States of America, there are four options for the Entrance Chant: (1) the antiphon from the Missal or the antiphon with its Psalm from the Graduale Romanum, as set to music there or in another setting; (2) the antiphon and Psalm of the Graduale Simplex for the liturgical time; (3) a chant from another collection of Psalms and antiphons, approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop, including Psalms arranged in responsorial or metrical forms; (4) another liturgical chant that is suited to the sacred action, the day, or the time of year,[54A] similarly approved by the Conference of Bishops or the Diocesan Bishop.

Also consider: there is no approved English translation of the offertory antiphons found in the Graduale Romanum and no offertory antiphon of any kind appears in the English version of the Roman Missal. Yet, the GIRM states:

74. The procession bringing the gifts is accompanied by the Offertory Chant (cf. no. 37 b), which continues at least until the gifts have been placed on the altar. The norms on the manner of singing are the same as for the Entrance Chant (cf. no. 48). Singing may always accompany the rite at the Offertory, even when there is no procession with the gifts.

I find it odd that in a forum that has a low opinion of the quality of the Novus Ordo Mass, that there is such focus on singing the antiphons as constructed in the Novus Ordo.

To be frank: the antiphons in the Novus Ordo are frequently a badly put together hack job. We have a three year lectionary, yet the Entrance and Communion antiphons are almost always the same each year. Some of these antiphons are taken from the pre-Vatican II Graduale Romanum, and matched to the new lectionary, often poorly. Other antiphons were invented by the reformers.

Looking back on the criteria for the Entrance antiphon:

Its purpose is to open the celebration, foster the unity of those who have been gathered, introduce their thoughts to the mystery of the liturgical time or festivity, and accompany the procession of the Priest and ministers

The Entrance antiphons in the Roman Missal frequently fail to correspond to this purpose. While they are often well chosen in Advent, Christmas, Lent, and some of Easter, it seems to me that the majority of the antiphons chosen for Ordinary Time have no discernable connection to the rest of the corresponding liturgy.

I also note that in the options for the Entrance antiphon, the following is the criteria for choosing a song other than the antiphon:

(4) another liturgical chant that is suited to the sacred action, the day, or the time of year

Yet, the antiphons in the Roman Missal themselves frequently do not pertain to "the sacred action, the day, or the time of year." Arguing that the Roman Missal antiphons meet these criteria simply because they are in the missal in my view uses legal technicality to paper over a serious problem.

In my experience you can build greater fidelity to the purpose the Church has set forth for the Entrance, Offertory, and Communion chants by carefully discerning and choosing hymns that unambiguously speak to the readings, the season, or the liturgical action.

Then there are the practical challenges:

1. Most of the antiphons are short, comprised of just a few sentences. They can be lengthened by adding psalm verses but it is not required.

2. It is awkward to include the introit/offertory chant with the hymns we already sing.

The given antiphons are short, such that they are not long enough to cover the corresponding liturgical action when sung.

Alternating the proper chant with Psalm verses gets boring fairly quickly.

And yes, it's awkward to do both the proper chant and a hymn for the Entrance and Offertory chants. It's a lot easier to do both for communion, as there is more time.

3. There are chant books of all levels, many available for free. Psalm tones can be used as an alternative to published settings.

Proper Chant Resources:

The corpus of English chant music is not mature. In football, there's a saying that if you have two quarterbacks, you don't have a quarterback. By analogy, there are lots of free English chant resources out there, but the quality is often terrible. You need a high degree of expertise to sift through all the drek and find options that are good.

No one has yet created a single chant resource that has consistently high quality music that is achievable for a typical parish choir. Neither OCP or GIA has anything like this on offer, and no third party has created something like this either. People on this forum suggest wading through all sorts of different places on the internet to find resources.

The Source and Summit missal is well marketed and easy to implement, but in my experience the quality of the English chants are not great. At a previous parish I stopped using their Responsorial Psalms, and we didn't miss them. It looks to me like Source and Summit is being pushed by younger pastors who desire liturgical compliance, rather than by musicians who think it has excellent quality music, and definitely not by the popular demand of the people in the pews.

Neither OCP, GIA, Source and Summit, or anyone else has a complete set of quality Gregorian Chants for all parts of the Novus Ordo for all three cycles of the lectionary.

My general sense is that most parishes that have had either the pastor or the director of music mandate English chant for most of the Mass will have these English chants disappear if the people who mandated them move on to other parishes.

The quality of the English chant corpus is simply not there yet to sustain widespread implementation in typical parishes in the USA.

I do not understand why many of you think it is so important to chant the proper antiphons. There is so much opportunity to replace Spirit of Vatican II era drek with songs that are musically and textually excellent, and that everyone will be excited to learn and sing.

Many of you on this forum work at a destination trad parish. By which I mean, that your parish is the one parish in your metro area or within say a 30 to 45 minute drive, that people drive to from throughout the area out of a preference for a trad style Novus Ordo.

I work at a regular parish. Previous music directors tried and mostly failed to make everything English chant. Numbers went down both for choir participation and in the congregation. The people who hired me were looking to move things back to the center of the aisle. To stay employed, I need to keep the congregation, choir, parish staff, and pastor happy with the music. A thriving parish requires a congregation that is enthusiastic with the music. Within the parameters allowed in the GIRM, there needs to be some level of meeting people where they are at.

One thing that I've mentioned to people is the fact that we would never dare to say that Father could just make prayers up during Mass. There's a big red book on the altar that tells him exactly what to do/say. Same goes for the readings. SallySue doesn't get to just flip open her devotionals and read whatever strikes her mood. It is prescribed.

I agree with the spirit of this. But there is a hierarchy of sorts of liturgical texts.

The readings and most of the priest parts of the Mass absolutely can not be changed, according to the rubrics.

To that end, I've put quite a bit of effort into making sure all our Responsorial Psalms exactly follow either the Lectionary or the Abbey Psalms and Canticles. We don't let lectors paraphrase the first or second reading, and the Responsorial Psalm should be held to the same standard.

There are some parts of the mass where the Roman Missal says "in these, or similar words."

And the GIRM gives a variety of options for the Entrance, Offertory, and Communion chants.

FWIW, I find the operating assumption that the Missal or Gradual propers *always ought* to relate clearly to the lections to be just that, an assumption, and not one shared in fullest vigor by the Missal and related ritual books.

And, over decades, I've discovered that the lack of a clear relationship of propers to the lections is a feature rather than a bug (heck, even the second readings in Ordinary Time are not clearly connected to the rest of the lections). They certainly relate to "the sacred action" (the Christological communion antiphons are especially apt on that score) and qualify on that point alone, but they also offer counterpoint in more than one way. The putting-everything-else-through-the-lections-wringer approach to programming is not, at the end of the day, required by the Missal and ritual books nor is it necessarily the most fruitful in all instances. (I would suggest that directors of music and/or liturgy may be much more likely to notice connection or lack thereof than they assume is the case for the faithful in the pews.)

Alternating the proper chant with Psalm verses gets boring fairly quickly.

This is a feeble complaint in a post of otherwise thought-provoking points. It's like saying the Rosary "gets boring fairly quickly." But to throw out a bone, fauxbourdon, organum, or organ accompaniment can assist by layering in verticality and in the case of fauxbourdon, occasional metrical measures.

Very good points, @NihilNominis. We're in the process of clearly defining parish liturgical norms for progressive solemnity to address this very issue.

While we don't have all the details worked out, it will likely look something like:

Anticipated Mass - cantor & organ, hymns + sung communio, no incense, simple metrical or chant ordinary (seasonal rotation)

Early Mass - cantor or choir (depending on season) & organ , hymns + sung communio, optional incense, simple metrical or chant ordinary (seasonal rotation)

Principal Mass - Solemn NO with choir/schola & organ, sung introit, offertorio, communio, hymns where appropriate, full Latin chant ordinary (seasonal rotation)

Eventually I suspect we'll have a "Low Mass" with no music option, but we're the result of the recent merger of 4 parishes and we only have 1 weekend Mass at each campus, so there are pastoral consequences of "taking away" music from a campus. Those things will be sorted out over time. For now, the goal is clear progressive solemnity, and only the Principal Mass will get the more "maximal" approach of ceremonial and music.

Offertory Chant:

The offertory chants were not included in the Roman Missal (third edition, 2010). They can still be used and found in the resources at the bottom of this comment. Here is information from Gary Penkala at Cantica Nova:

The sources for the Offertory antiphons are:
Graduale Romanum, abbreviated GR
Graduale Simplex, abbreviated GS
The Graduale Simplex also includes several verses of a psalm that can be sung, with the antiphon being used before/after as usual. The verses are separated below with a slash (/).
Example:

On the First Sunday of Advent, the proper Offertory antiphon
To you I lift up my soul, O Lord, my God. In you I trust; let me not be put to shame, let not my enemies exult over me.
No one who waits for you shall be put to shame. [Psalm 25:1-3]
can be sung, perhaps using a familiar psalm tone. Then can be chanted these verses of Psalm 25:
To you I lift up my soul, O Lord, my God... [vs 1b]
Remember that your compassion, O Lord... [vs 6]
All the paths of the Lord... [vs 10]
Preserve my lofe, and rescue me... [vs 20]
Redeem Israel, O God... [vs 22]

In many instances, the Graduale Simplex does not have a specific Mass for a Sunday (see Advent 2) because for the seasons outside Lent, the Graduale Simplex arranges "composite Masses." You may choose from among these a Mass to use on any Sunday in that season. Thus, there are several celebrations below which list an Offertory antiphon from the Graduale Romanum but do not have a corresponding antiphon from the Graduale Simplex. On those Sundays, any of the seasonal psalms suggested in the Graduale Simplex could be used together with the proper antiphon from the Graduale Romanum, if desired.

Note: All the psalm numbering is that found in the New American Bible, not the older numbering found in the Graduale.

English Resources:

Entrance, Offertory and Communion Chants-Peter Johnson
Lalemant Propers-CC Watershed
Psalm 51-Brian Michael Page
Choral Missal-Richard Rice

There are more of course.

Well this is my beef with Musicam Sacram. That every weekend Mass or close to it is sung is because the Missa cum cantu became normalized and they broke down the framework for singing the Mass itself so you might get dialogues on a weekday, but never the propers on Sunday, and the propers but not the preface (unfortunately this happens more than it should).

PLease, go back and read the history of that little nugget. Most people have been fed a line of BS about it. In other words, people don't have to sing everything and should not do so. From the guy who does choral Masses (without the people's participation.)

Oh, I agree. I say doctrine with my tongue in my cheek and whilst clenching my teeth in frustration. I've gotten into real-world arguments over it (at a local synod session, I regret to say, but I digress...). But it might as well be a doctrine for how tightly some people (and clergy) cling to it.

I usually like to trot out this quote for them:

[3] Full participation certainly means that every member of the community has a part to play in the liturgy; and in this respect a great deal has been achieved in parishes and communities across your land. But full participation does not mean that everyone does everything, since this would lead to a clericalizing of the laity and a laicizing of the priesthood; and this was not what the Council had in mind. The liturgy, like the Church, is intended to be hierarchical and polyphonic, respecting the different roles assigned by Christ and allowing all the different voices to blend in one great hymn of praise.

Active participation certainly means that, in gesture, word, song and service, all the members of the community take part in an act of worship, which is anything but inert or passive. Yet active participation does not preclude the active passivity of silence, stillness and listening: indeed, it demands it. Worshippers are not passive, for instance, when listening to the readings or the homily, or following the prayers of the celebrant, and the chants and music of the liturgy. These are experiences of silence and stillness, but they are in their own way profoundly active. In a culture which neither favors nor fosters meditative quiet, the art of interior listening is learned only with difficulty. [Address of the Holy Father Pope John Paul II to the Bishops of the Episcopal Conference of the United States of America, 9 October 1998]