"Appropriate" hymns for Mass?

[liturgyluver]

I have decided to try and make a list of Catholic-penned traditional hymns:

- Lord accept the gifts we offer
- O king of might and splendour
- Let all mortal flesh keep silence (english translation by an Anglican)
- Soul of my saviour
- Creator of the starry night (translated by an Anglican)
- Hark a herald voice is sounding
- The advent of our God
- O come all ye faithful
- Bethelehem of noblest cities
- Stabat Mater
- Sing my tongue the glorious battle (Anglican translator)
- Christ the Lord is risen today (not the Wesley version)
- Battle is o'er
- Firmly I believe and truly
- Sweet Sacrament Divine
- Glory be to Jesus
- Faith of our fathers
- -Lead kindly light
- Praise to the Holiest in the height

Thank goodness that John Henry Newman and Edward Caswell converted as they wrote many hymns.

[TrueLight]

Originally Posted by liturgyluver

I have decided to try and make a list of Catholic-penned traditional hymns:

- Lord accept the gifts we offer
- O king of might and splendour
- Let all mortal flesh keep silence (english translation by an Anglican)
- Soul of my saviour
- Creator of the starry night (translated by an Anglican)
- Hark a herald voice is sounding
- The advent of our God
- O come all ye faithful
- Bethelehem of noblest cities
- Stabat Mater
- Sing my tongue the glorious battle (Anglican translator)
- Christ the Lord is risen today (not the Wesley version)
- Battle is o'er
- Firmly I believe and truly
- Sweet Sacrament Divine
- Glory be to Jesus
- Faith of our fathers
- -Lead kindly light
- Praise to the Holiest in the height

Thank goodness that John Henry Newman and Edward Caswell converted as they wrote many hymns.

Thank you so much.

[mburn16]

There are thousands upon thousands of hymns out there, any great number of which could be considered to be appropriate for Catholic Worship. Written both by Catholics and non-Catholics, anytime from hundreds of years ago to just within the past decade.

While its certainly good to ask for suggestions, perhaps an even better route is to select hymns that you like, and then determine whether a particular hymn is suitable - and if not, whether it could be made to be so through slightly lyrical adjustment.

[TrueLight]

Originally Posted by mburn16

There are thousands upon thousands of hymns out there, any great number of which could be considered to be appropriate for Catholic Worship. Written both by Catholics and non-Catholics, anytime from hundreds of years ago to just within the past decade.

While its certainly good to ask for suggestions, perhaps an even better route is to select hymns that you like, and then determine whether a particular hymn is suitable - and if not, whether it could be made to be so through slightly lyrical adjustment.

The thing is I know a lot of hymns, since I am a convert and I miss them, quite frankly. So that's why I would be interested in "Catholic" hymns.

[Symphorian]

Catholic music planning here:

http://www.canticanova.com/pln_main.htm


A hymnary site which lists over 100 older Catholic hymnals, several with words and music:

http://www.hymnary.org/hymnals?qu=al...c%20in:hymnals


The English Hymnal and New English Hymnal (Anglican) is very liturgical with lots of plainsong.

1906 English Hymnal here:

http://imslp.org/wiki/The_English_Hymnal_%28Various%29


Free choral music here:

http://www3.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

[liturgyluver]

Originally Posted by Symphorian

Catholic music planning here:

http://www.canticanova.com/pln_main.htm


A hymnary site which lists over 100 older Catholic hymnals, several with words and music:

http://www.hymnary.org/hymnals?qu=al...c%20in:hymnals


The English Hymnal and New English Hymnal (Anglican) is very liturgical with lots of plainsong.

1906 English Hymnal here:

http://imslp.org/wiki/The_English_Hymnal_%28Various%29


Free choral music here:

http://www3.cpdl.org/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Thanks for these wonderful links. From the Catholic hymnal website I especially enoyed the nostalgia of reading "A Treasury of catholic song from 1915 (not that I remember it personally, but I saw a copy in a sale once), but when I clicked on some of the newer ones from the 1950s , I laughed when I saw "A mighty fortress is Our God"!

I know it's Anglican but I think the New English Hymnal is just [i]the[i] best one available. I love the way it is divided into the liturgical year and it is a good size. The English Hynmal too is great and very impressive that they include all the propers throughout the year at the back. Why can't a catholic hymnal do that, I ask?

Thanks again.

[Symphorian]

Originally Posted by liturgyluver

I know it's Anglican but I think the New English Hymnal is just [i]the[i] best one available. I love the way it is divided into the liturgical year and it is a good size. The English Hynmal too is great and very impressive that they include all the propers throughout the year at the back. Why can't a catholic hymnal do that, I ask?

Thanks again.

I'm a big fan of the EH and NEH. Fortunately the Anglican congo I play for are trads.
Sadly there's much trite drivel creeping into other Anglican Hymnals.

[AthenaC]

Lots of "appropriate" ones, but only the good ones are really useful.

Some of my favorites:

O Lord I am Not Worthy (great Communion hymn)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5fRS8i_MCQ

Shepherd of my Heart ('nother great Communion hymn)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znnxuQ5twGA
(not the highest quality example, but it serves its purpose)

Ave Maria's (Bach / Rachmaninoff / whoever) or something more complex are always good for after the primary Communion hymn as something reflective and prayerful that the congregation isn't really meant to sing along with. My favorite post-Communion hymn was at a Christmas Vigil a few years ago - Gaudete.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obLayCNhbHw

And, of course, Amazing Grace and How Great Thou Art.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhvaDJTUmrU
(If you follow none of my other links, follow this one!)

[VeritasLuxMea]

Originally Posted by AthenaC

And, of course, Amazing Grace and How Great Thou Art.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhvaDJTUmrU
(If you follow none of my other links, follow this one!)

I am sooooo beyond confused at this point. I've seen people here on CAF say that Amazing Grace is "inappropriate" and I also believe (though not certain) that people here have said How Great Thou Art is too.

How the heck do you determine one way or another?

[markomalley]

Bishop Slattery had some unique insights into this a couple of years ago:

What I would like to propose is that we recover the sung introit at Mass.

I know that for two generations now, Catholics have been expected to sing an opening hymn at Mass and in many parishes the faithful are regularly browbeaten to “stand up and greet this morning’s celebrant with hymn #so-and-so” which, depending upon the parish, might be taken from the red hymnbook, or the blue hymnbook, or the nicely disposable paperback missalette. So deeply has this ‘opening hymn mentality’ shaped our consciousness that most Catholics would be astounded to hear me say that hymns have no real place in Mass.

Hymns belong in the Liturgy of the Hours and in the common devotions of the faithful, but the idea that the parish liturgy committee should sit down sometime early in the month and look through a hymn book, trying to find pretty hymns which haven’t been overdone in the past three or four months, which explore the themes of the Sunday Masses and which brings the people together as a singing community is an idea completely alien to the spirit of the Catholic liturgy.

It is alien first of all because the singing of hymns as Sunday worship was a Protestant innovation, better suited to their non-Sacramental worship than to the Mass, and alien secondly because an opening hymn introduces - at the very inception of the sacred action - that element of creative busy-ness, which is, as we have seen, antithetical to the nature of salvation as a gift we receive from God.

What belongs at the beginning of Mass is the sung introit, that is a sung antiphon and psalm. In the Catholic liturgical tradition, these are unique compositions in which a scriptural cento is set to a singular piece of music. The melody explores and interprets the text of the cento, while the composition as a whole illuminates the meaning to be discovered later in the readings of the day.

The Sung Introit
These sung introits have been an integral part of the Latin Rite, and remain so in the Extraordinary Form, where the schola or choir chants the more difficult antiphon, and the congregation sings the psalm. This gives the faithful both the chance to listen and respond, practicing, in effect, the basic elements of the Mass, listening and responding, listening, for example to the Word of God as it comes to us in the readings, and then responding to the Father’s initiative by offering to Him the obedience of Jesus.

Unfortunately these antiphons have never been set to music in the Novus Ordo. For forty years they have sat, lonely of notation, at the top of each page in the Sacramentary unable to be sung, until even the memory of the sung introit has passed away...

For me, I would be quite satisfied with any of the selections from this book:



And, before any pastor or music director selects a hymn with a melody based on the fourth movement of Beethoven's 9th symphony, I would make it mandatory that they study the actual text of Schiller's lyrics (for which the melody was written)....and then to ask themselves the appropriateness of that musical setting within a Catholic Mass.

Another good resource for determining "good" with music:
- Pope Pius X, Motu Proprio Tra le Sollecitudini (1903)

[AthenaC]

Originally Posted by VeritasLuxMea

I am sooooo beyond confused at this point. I've seen people here on CAF say that Amazing Grace is "inappropriate" and I also believe (though not certain) that people here have said How Great Thou Art is too.

How the heck do you determine one way or another?

Speaking for myself, I use common sense and my impeccable taste.

I know many others have strongly opined that nothing is "appropriate" for Mass except for Gregorian chants composed before 1500. Anything composed after 1500 is modern trash and the work of the devil.

Kidding. Sort of. In any case, I consider violently scrupulous opinions something to be charitably ignored.

[JGMendes4049]

Originally Posted by YoungTradCath

Propers.... oh God... please.

Yes please.

Propers FTW!