Song books, missals, or hymnals suitable to Catholic schools
  • StephenMatthew
    Posts: 124
    Does anyone have any recommendations and reviews of resources for use in Catholic schools?

    Particularly with suitability for mass and various other liturgical and devotional use, but also that can at least have some utility in supporting music education in general in a K-8 setting.

    Our parish school has mostly been getting by with what seem to be secularly sourced music education resources combined with using single occasion and seasonal song sheets licensed through OneLicense for use at mass. There is some at least nominal interest in having something more like a hymnal in the school, and while I can turn up several options through web searches, I would be interested in reviews and recommendations about things that have worked, or have not worked, that you have some experience with using.

    For better or for worse our current school mass format is a single K-8 combined all school mass once per week... which is liturgically and musically challenging to begin with... and also means any sort of book purchase would need to basically be one per student for the entire school, so cost per copy is also a significant factor.

    Thoughts? Recommendations? Reviews?

    Thanks!
  • TimTheEnchanterTimTheEnchanter
    Posts: 238
    If the parish uses a hymnal, just use that.

    One of the goals of the school Mass absolutely should be continuity with the weekend Masses. You can supplement it if you'd like (for example, we taught the kids the Missa de Angelis Kyrie, which is not in Breaking Bread), but the consistency and continuity is quite helpful. Before I arrived at my current post (a parish with a school, where I nosed my way into the school Mass), the school used (sigh) Rise Up and Sing, and when I arrived the principal and I agreed it was time to move on from those. So we use the Breaking Bread hymnals in the pews, and it's worked well.

    If the parish doesn't use a hymnal, I would stick with worship aids. Kids are very, very rough on books, but the kid-aged hymnals (mostly if not all in paperback) will fall apart quickly and the regular hymnals are too expensive for most school budgets. (The annual replacement of Breaking Bread is an advantage here, as it's a parish cost and the kids don't have enough time to damage them.)
    Thanked by 3davido CHGiffen Liam
  • davido
    Posts: 1,229
    ^^agreed
    Thanked by 3CHGiffen Liam TimTheEnchanter
  • AnimaVocis
    Posts: 230
    I would be happy to send you the resource that I have put together for my school. (Pre-k through 12.)

    In short, we use the graduale simplex and a selection of hymn suite with hymns to mirror the GS within Mass.

    I'm currently refining a bit more for this year, but I'm happy to share the document for your own use of it would be of help! (Or even just as an idea booklet).
    Thanked by 2Paul F. Ford irishtenor
  • m_r_taylor
    Posts: 396
    @AnimaVocis, would you be able to send me that document, please?
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,723
    I wouldn’t assume that there is a parish or if there is that they’re necessarily in the same building,
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