The Vatican II Hymnal

Have you heard of the Vatican II Hymnal? Here’s a description from the publisher:

750 PAGES LONG • COMPLETE READINGS FOR ALL SUNDAYS AND MAJOR FEASTS FOR YEARS A, B, & C • FIRST HYMNAL EVER PRINTED TO CONTAIN COMPLETE TEXTS FOR THE SUNG PROPERS • MORE THAN A HUNDRED PAGES OF MASS SETTINGS USING THE NEW TRANSLATION OF THE ROMAN MISSAL • COMPLETE TEXTS IN LATIN AND ENGLISH FOR BOTH FORMS OF THE MASS (ORDINARY & EXTRAORDINARY) • BEAUTIFUL HYMNS, INCLUDING MORE THAN 100 PAGES OF COMMUNION HYMNS • SAINT NOËL CHABANEL RESPONSORIAL PSALMS, GARNIER ALLELUIAS, AND MUCH MORE

You can see some sample pages here.

Crisis Magazine recently ran an article reviewing the Vatican II Hymnal, entitled “Some New Church Music That Isn’t Sickening”, by Daniel Lord. Read the whole thing there, but here’s an excerpt to whet your appetite:

A New Kind of Hymnal

This is not another article about bad liturgical music. It is more of a clarion call to embrace a better way of performing and participating in the music of Mass. The recently released Vatican II Hymnal, published by the Texas-based non-profit organization Corpus Christi Watershed, is the pièce de résistance of this “better way.”

…

The Church put specific prayers and chants in place for every Mass many centuries ago, with the intention that we should sing them regularly and ritually: an Introit at the beginning, a Gradual and an Alleluia after the readings, an Offertory and a Communion.

Each is an exquisite gem that inspires everyone who hears. Each bears an aura of antiquity that is astounding: many of them would have been heard and sung by St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Francis of Assisi, and St. Albert the Great.

The Church prefers that we use these chants today, and yet most of us have never heard them before. The Catholic Church does allow for some latitude in the music planned for Mass, but what was intended as an extraordinary exception has become a universal rule. Sunday Mass is now dominated by songs which are quite often musically inferior, thematically inappropriate, and lyrically shallow. The result is a lack of unity in God’s family and a watering down of the Mass’s inherent beauty.

How can a parish make the switch to chant?

“I would suggest a two-step program,” [CCW President Jeffrey Ostrowski] says. “Firstly, every secular, undignified, emotionally-driven song needs to be gradually banished from our churches. Secondly, we ought not to instantly take away hymns, because we have become so accustomed to them—and many are truly beautiful and they enhance worship. However, we should remember that chanting, especially the Mass Propers, is our ultimate goal.”

“Musicologists,” he goes on to say, “have pointed out that the very form of metrical hymns, with their predictable upbeat and downbeat, tend to remind us of the passage of time and (by extension) the world. Whereas Gregorian chant, which is completely free in its rhythm, takes you into another world: prayerful, reverent, eternal, holy.”

On top of this, it is the preferred music of the Church—not the hymns to which we have all become so accustomed. Gregorian chant “should be given pride of place in liturgical services,” wrote the Council Fathers in 1963’s Sacrosanctum Concilium (par. 116) and yet this mandate has largely been ignored for decades.

The article concludes with this paragraph:

The Vatican II Hymnal, like everything Corpus Christi Watershed produces, is done with no other purpose in mind than to bring us all into closer contact with God and with each other at Mass. It is high time that music directors stop thumbing through missalettes in search of mediocre songs that may or may not be prescribed by the Church. It is time to rediscover the ancient glory of the chants that the Church gives us.

Read the whole article here.