Song books, missals, or hymnals suitable to Catholic schools
  • StephenMatthew
    Posts: 130
    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 6davido CHGiffen Liam LauraKaz StephenMatthew Abbysmum
  • davido
    Posts: 1,232
    ^^agreed
    Thanked by 4CHGiffen Liam TimTheEnchanter StephenMatthew
  • AnimaVocis
    Posts: 235
    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 4Paul F. Ford irishtenor StephenMatthew Abbysmum
  • m_r_taylor
    Posts: 399
    @AnimaVocis, would you be able to send me that document, please?
    Thanked by 1StephenMatthew
  • MatthewRoth
    Posts: 3,735
    I wouldn’t assume that there is a parish or if there is that they’re necessarily in the same building,
    Thanked by 1StephenMatthew
  • StephenMatthew
    Posts: 130
    @TimTheEnchanter
    Ideally yes use what is in the pew, but that doesn’t work if say mass is in the gym or cafeteria of the school (ongoing, or because of poor weather, etc).

    @AnimaVocis
    I would likely be into that, but not sure if that might be pushing the Overton window too far for our use case.

  • AnimaVocis
    Posts: 235
    Indeed. I can send that booklet along sometime today or tomorrow. I'm currently in the process of revising it ... Let me send the old version (cleaned up of parish identifiers) and then I'll send along the 2nd edition.
    Thanked by 1StephenMatthew
  • ServiamScores
    Posts: 3,343
    One of the goals of the school Mass absolutely should be continuity with the weekend Masses.
    Amen.

    I hit this roadblock at one point. The school masses and Sunday masses only resembled each other insofar as they took place in the same room. It blew my mind that they were so different and bore no resemblance to the expression of the parish. I've been working to rectify that situation ever since.

    We are a parish that has a school, not a school that happens to also have Mass on Sundays. There is a difference.

    If the parish doesn't use a hymnal, I would stick with worship aids.
    Our kids use worship aids no problem. In fact, it simplifies certain things. It's more work on my end, but we don't have to worry about finding pages in a book, or announcing "NUMBER 322, that's number THREE... TWO.... TWO." (ugh)

    ----
    FWIW, I collated a ton of hymns last year and engraved them all, and now I have a collection of hymns ready to go for this year that the kids are more/less familiar with.
    Thanked by 3LauraKaz StephenMatthew Abbysmum
  • StephenMatthew
    Posts: 130
    Thank you everyone for suggestions, and please feel free to continue discussing this topic here and sharing resources.

    It might be that in the long term printing a localized hymnal/missal/song book might be a possibility, someday... but the trouble is at least some of the favorites of the students include some contemporary works that I think would prove troublesome to license for a local publication.

    In the nearer term I think I will need to put in some work on a sort of core repertoire, a minimum essential list of what the students should learn to sing for liturgy and paraliturgical devotions. The ordinary and simple dialogues of the mass in English and Latin would I think be easy to justify as part of such a list. Given our growing emphasis on Hispanic ministries and such we could perhaps justify the Spanish, too, at least for the older students. After that it becomes a bit harder to really justify individual selections. I could take Paul VI as an authority for recommending the entire Jubilate Deo contents (probably the shorter original rather than the 1987 expanded), but beyond that no one with much authority (juridical or moral) has put out such a minimum core repertoire in English (there was talk of such once at the USCCB, but the project either was cancelled entirely, or is on permanent back burner at least).

    I think such a minimum repertoire could be approached from two directions:
    Essential texts and essential melodies.

    I think here the temptation, like with the expansion of the Jubilate Deo chant collection itself, is to always keep adding more stuff because it is good stuff, but a key criteria for any sort of core shared repertoire or minimum essential list is being a bare minimum and tightly curated. I am open to suggestions or recommendations on this front.
  • AbbysmumAbbysmum
    Posts: 209
    I just use the hymnals in our pews as a resource. In our case, we have CBWIII, very very old Glory & Praise (1st edition), St. Michael's Hymnal and Celebrate in Song (a music supplement to the CBWIII from the CCCB).

    Because of the way I structure music for school Masses, I do have a song sheet that I prepare monthly on just plain paper, printed under our license, that we use through the month. Then, I throw them out. They are usually well massacred by this point.

    Our kids use worship aids no problem. In fact, it simplifies certain things. It's more work on my end, but we don't have to worry about finding pages in a book, or announcing "NUMBER 322, that's number THREE... TWO.... TWO." (ugh)


    This. By the time the kids found the page, the song would be done. Plus, there isn't enough books for each child to have a hymnal, which then requires sharing, which is fraught with other problems...

    They get a single piece of paper with the month's songs. Done.

    Edit to add: If you haven't already, you might glean some ideas from this thread

  • novusgordo
    Posts: 38
    @Abbysmum: your link is broken. (Also, just looking at that list of hymnals is giving me liturgical whiplash! Then again, I could live with liturgical whiplash if I had St. Michael's as one of the options.)
  • AbbysmumAbbysmum
    Posts: 209
    @novusgordo here is the link in full: https://forum.musicasacra.com/forum/discussion/23571/advice-needed-struggling-to-pick-music-for-children039s-school-masses-this-year#Item_26

    Yes, it's a bit of a whiplash. The St. Michael's is a recent addition, and I quite love most of it. I wish we could get rid of the G&P, but one Mass still uses it a lot (we have 4 distinct groups providing music for 4 weekend Masses - I'm involved in 2 of them, plus my work with the school). We're stuck with the CBWIII & CiS until CBWIV comes out (if it ever comes out, it's been "almost here" for the better part of a decade).
  • novusgordo
    Posts: 38
    @Abbysmum:
    Regarding Music for Catholic Worship (the hymnal formerly known as CBW4), a few weeks ago I received this update from +Dowd (Sault Ste.-Marie) via Reddit:
    The new hymnal is going through the episcopal review phase, with a vote due in August. I have a copy on my desk, which I will study carefully in the coming days. The study text is over 500 pages.
    So hopefully by the end of the year we'll have a release date, assuming the manuscript doesn't get voted down?
    Thanked by 1Abbysmum
Add a Comment