Announcing The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Hymnal: 900 Pages of Gregorian Chant and Classic Hymns

Os Justi Press is proud to announce the publication of

The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Hymnal. Produced by Music Manuscript Service of Denver with the help of a team of expert consultants, the OLMCH provides, at long last, the ultimate Catholic hymnal for a fully traditional Catholic sacred music program, in parishes, schools, or religious houses. Designed primarily with TLM communities in mind, here are some highlights: • Full Gregorian Kyriale in chant notation, including all 18 Solesmes Ordinaries plus several more (Du Mont, Hildegard, Pothier), 11 settings of the Creed, and all common tones of the Mass • Complete text & chants of the traditional Requiem & Nuptial Masses • More than 600 Catholic hymns, ancient and new, for every season and occasion, with original (non-modernized) lyrics and classic SATB harmonizations • All your favorite hymns plus an astonishing repertoire specifically for saints' feasts: Our Lady (70 separate pieces for her!) and St. Joseph (7), but also St. Anne, the Holy Archangels, the Guardian Angels, St. John the Baptist, St. Peter, St. Paul, St. John, St. Stephen, the Holy Innocents, St. Cecilia, St. Martin, St. Teresa of Avila, St. Thérèse of Lisieux, St. Benedict, St. Scholastica, St. Dominic, St. Francis, and more • Many hymns feature organ introductions

• Concludes with several beloved Litanies, in English and in Latin chant: Holy Name; Sacred Heart; Our Lady (Loreto); St. Joseph; Saints • Beautifully bound hardcover of nearly 900 pages, but still thin and light enough to make the book sit comfortably in the hand For more information (including bulk discount rates), visit this link. Here's a 3-minute promo video:

More photos:

Again, visit the publisher’s site for more information.

Deo optimo maximo, To God the greatest and best!

What a Catholic Hymn Should Be

Over a decade ago, I read an article by Joseph Swain, “St. Mark’s—A Liturgy Without Hymns,” that profoundly shook up my way of thinking about music in divine worship. (Swain, by the way, is the author of one of the best books I’ve ever read: Sacred Treasure: Understanding Catholic Liturgical Music. The price of this book has steadily gone down over the years, so it’s almost affordable now.) Swain basically says: Why do we think congregational hymns are so important, as if a liturgy could not be well conducted without them? Why do we have a narrow, univocal, and horizontalist conception of active participation? Our forefathers knew better: they thought of participation in a multi-sensory or synesthetic manner, as an entering into liturgical actions, movements, and symbols that unfold over the course of the rite and impress themselves upon us. Sometimes, as John Paul II once said, the best and most active thing we can do at a certain moment is look and listen well. Swain’s article gives a detailed description of how he saw a solemn (Novus Ordo) Mass conducted at San Marco in Venice. It was thrilling, it involved the faithful in all kinds of ways, but there wasn’t a single congregational hymn.

I suppose that not too many readers of NLM would disagree with this perspective. Most would probably also agree that vernacular hymns can and do have a place; however much we might debate what exactly that place is. The Anglican Ordinariate liturgies may freely help themselves to an immense patrimony of English hymnody. TLM parishes often sing vernacular hymns at the start and the conclusion of High Mass; between these pre- and post-liturgical hymns, only Latin chants, polyphony, and congregational responses are to be heard. The solutions that have been attempted in the Wild West of the Novus Ordo vary from alternating hymns and propers, to always pairing them (either the antiphon first and then a hymn, or vice versa), to finding hymns whose texts match the propers as closely as possible, and so forth. In any case, it seems that, for better or for worse, for richer or for poorer, hymns are here to stay.

Now, if we want the balance to tilt towards “for better” and “for richer,” we have to look at two things above all: the quality of the music, and the quality of the text. The music should be stately, well-crafted, soaring in melody but reasonable in range, rarely syncopated, and altogether lacking in sentimentality or schmalziness. The text, for its part, should be excellent poetry that actually rhymes, using proper English grammar and rhetorical tropes; it should be not only doctrinally orthodox (which rules out a great deal of the tripe sold by GIA and OCP), but vivid, robust, and insightful.

Two recent books analyze classic hymns that exemplify all these principles: Fr. George William Rutler’s The Stories of Hymns and Anthony Esolen’s Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church. For its part, the long-awaited Saint Jean de Brébeuf Hymnal from the folks who run Corpus Christi Watershed is, hands down, the best Catholic hymnal ever to be published, in spite of the unfortunate choice of wording for the cover. [1] Its copious selection of hundreds of tunes and texts, including favorites, forgotten gems, and new commissions, all beautifully formatted and presented in a surprisingly compact hardcover volume, is not only unparalleled by any other current hymnal, but well exceeds that of any hymnal I have seen from any period.

In honor of the upcoming feast of the Most Blessed Trinity, I would like to share here a French hymn that I encountered in my visit to St. Clement’s parish in Ottawa. This is what a church hymn should be, if it is to be at all: noble poetry, dogmatic content, and sturdy, artful music that has a certain formality and dignity to it, rather than a meandering melody and emotionally manipulative clichés. Naturally, the translation does not have the poetic qualities of the original, but it does show the strength of the text (with the possible exception of the first line of the second verse, which still has me scratching my head).

1. O Trinity, who will be able to fathom
The sublime heights of Thine immense being?
May our faith, in its humble silence,
At least know how to adore Thy greatness.

2. Thou unitest three august Persons
In the unity of one single and same God;
Saints, at His feet lay your crowns—
Glory to Him alone, in every time, in every place!

3. Divine Spirit! O Son! and Thou, O Father!
You possess the same divinity,
The same riches, the same brightness of light,
The same power and the same eternity.

4. O Seraphim! You cover with your wings
The radiant throne of the living God,
And your songs of His holy Name,
Spirits ever faithful, make the skies resound.

5. Holy Trinity, attend to our prayer,
And be propitious to the wishes of Thy children.
Grant that here below, walking in Thy light,
they may one day ascend triumphant to heaven.

NOTE

[1] The hymnal says on the cover: “Saint Jean de Brébeuf Hymnal for Both Forms of the Roman Rite.” I know from experience that this language of “two forms,” a clever canonical fiction of Benedict XVI deemed necessary to deal with an unprecedented rupture in tradition, has begun to wear thin on both sides of the liturgical divide; those who are still principled proponents of the NO resent the idea that their liturgical books are not the definitive Roman Rite as apparently willed by the Council and Paul VI, while traditionalists, including most FSSP and ICKSP clergy and laity known to me, do not believe for a second that there are two equal forms of the Roman Rite. Their position is that of Msgr. Klaus Gamber: there is one authentic Roman rite, and there is a modern deviation from it which does not deserve the same name. It would have sufficed if the hymnal cover had said “for the Roman Rite” (leaving it ambiguous, and therefore acceptable to anyone in the debate), or even “for the Catholic liturgy,” which is broad enough to include not only the TLM and the NO, but the Anglican Ordinariate as well. Perhaps a future edition will modify the cover accordingly. I have spoken with priests and music directors who have said that the cover, by itself, is the reason they could not adopt the Saint Jean de Brébeuf Hymnal, though I would think that a color image printed on card stock and carefully glued to the cover might do the trick. It is such a fantastic hymnal that it deserves to be in the pews of every Catholic church.

Visit www.peterkwasniewski.com for events, articles, sacred music, and classics reprinted by Os Justi Press (e.g., Benson, Scheeben, Parsch, Guardini, Chaignon, Leen).

A First Look at the New Brébeuf Hymnal

The Brébeuf Hymnal, officially released at the end of 2018, has started to appear in mailboxes! This elegant hardcover pew edition is 932 pages, and contains more Catholic metrical hymns than any other collection. (The focus was not plainsong settings, since these are to be had in abundance in the Liber Usualis, Cantus Selecti, Liber Hymnarius, etc.) The hymns are primarily in English, but Latin versions are also provided, accompanied by literal translations. Drawing from the authentic Catholic treasury, it neither mimics nor builds upon Protestant hymnals. The Brébeuf Hymnal was created by and for choirmasters and priests working in real parishes across the globe; its melodies are beautiful and dignified, but usually very simple. Modern settings are also included, by such composers as Flor Peeters, Alfred Calabrese, Peter LeJeune, Richard Clark, and Kevin Allen. For more information, see http://www.ccwatershed.org/hymn/

Continue Reading this Article. . .

A New Catholic Hymnal from Corpus Christ Watershed - Review by Fr Christopher Smith

Our thanks to Fr Christopher Smith, one of our colleagues at Chant Café, for sharing with us his review of this exciting new project from Corpus Christi Watershed, the St John de Brébeuf Hymnal, a truly Catholic collection of hymns which can be used with both Forms of the Roman Rite.

The celebration of the Mass that best corresponds to its true nature, and to the Church’s magisterial teaching, is a fully sung liturgy, with pride of place given to Gregorian chant, and the Ordinary and Propers sung according to their proper texts. The all-too-common “Four Hymn Sandwich” is a curious holdover from a Low Mass culture in which people sang pieces unrelated to the liturgical texts, often in the vernacular, while the Mass was in Latin. It is a curious blindspot of the liturgical influence-makers of a certain age that they would keep this disconnect only to advance another part of their agenda, but this is the world we inhabit.

There are voices crying in the wilderness that the propers must be restored to their pride of place, and they are being heard. The melodies of the Graduale Romanum with their Latin texts are being heard in more and more places; vernacular adaptations of them, and new compositions, metrical and more chant-like, are coming forth and being used. This is creating a desire for better liturgy and better music, but we all know that sometimes we have to make baby steps towards our ideals.

Hymns have become such a part of Catholics’ expectation of their Mass experience that calls for their removal and replacement with antiphons alone are often met with suspicion or anger. And so they remain. But the question about the hymns is then reduced to, “What texts, what melodies, what styles are appropriate?” The unseemly battles in liturgy committee meetings over whether young people want Isaac Watts, Marty Haugen or Matt Maher at Mass all miss the point: the relative merits of those varied styles are all paltry in comparison with the treasury of hymnody which the Church already has, still, unfortunately, largely untapped.

How then do the discerning musician and pastor mine the tradition for hymns to introduce to Catholics? How can we unlock the treasury and unleash the riches?

Enter the Saint John de Brébeuf Hymnal for Both Forms of the Roman Rite, published by the John Paul II Institute for Liturgical Renewal in 2018. Those familiar with the other projects which Corpus Christi Watershed has assisted with, will note a familiar design. But this is not the ordinary run of the mill “collection of hymns that people know with a few they don’t know.” This hymnal is a work of incredible scholarship, and one which puts the fruit of that scholarship to work in a practical vehicle for opening the treasures of Catholic hymnody to the people.

The first part of the book, entitled, “Ancient Hymns of the Catholic Church,” contains many of the hymns of the breviary. But these are presented in such a way as to provide several tunes and several texts in English, often taken or adapted from a wealth of English translations from centuries past, some of them even taken from English Catholic primers of the Renaissance and Baroque era. But they are not just borrowed from these sources wholesale. Discerning editors have given great thought to how a large swath of people in our pews would take to singing certain words or turns of phrase, and carefully adapting to what people might actually get their mouths around in singing!

(A version of the communion hymn Sancti, venite, from the 7th century Bangor antiphonary, in a translation by Adrian Fortescue.)

The second part of the book, entitled “Additional Hymns”, will be attractive to those who are open to introducing these “old but new for most” hymns, but want a resource that also contains appropriate hymns for the liturgical year, as well as general use hymns more familiar to English-speaking congregations.

An interesting feature of the book is that the index is placed not at the back, but in the middle of the book, after an attractive set of color plates exploring hymnals. The indices are quite well thought out. They provide the ability to search for name, hymn tune, and occasion in an admirable way, and their placement in the middle makes looking for them easier than wrangling the book at the end. There is also a section at the end with several versions of the Stations of the Cross, which is useful to have, in the same volumes as the hymns for many parishes, text and hymns without the multiplication of more little booklets.

A good choir program will of course contain many pieces of complexity, whether by Palestrina, Bach, or Duruflé. But the mature choirmaster knows well that simple pieces—such as the magnificent hymn tunes in the Brébeuf Hymnal—can be utterly sublime. Moreover, these simple melodies can always be enhanced by new harmonizations, descants, counter-melodies, and SATB arrangements.

This volume is useful to have in any music library or pastor’s office for reference, but is also the kind of volume which can be profitably sought out for choirs and for congregations. As a hymnal without the readings in it, which provides ample resources both old and new, it can truly be said to mark a new and exciting phase in the recovery of ancient liturgical texts for the use of the faithful in a practical way for all involved!

Book Sale — Liturgical Manuals, Music, Rare Items

It's been a while since we've offered any books for sale. Here are a few from my collection, a mixture of rubrics, rituals, monasticism, and music. Many of these books are out-of-print. I will start with a list of titles, and if you're interested in seeing photos and details, click "Read more..." below.

• Wapelhorst, Compendium Sacrae Liturgiae, Juxta Ritum Romanum (1931). (sold)
• Mueller, Handbook of Ceremonies for Priests and Seminarians (1950). (sold)
• Fortescue, O'Connell, and Reid, The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described (2009). (sold)
• Angrisani, Daily Breviary Meditations: Meditations for Every Day on the Scriptural Lessons of the Roman Breviary (1954). (sold)
• The Priest's New Ritual for the Convenience of the Reverend Clergy in the Administration of the Sacraments and Various Blessings (1927/1941). (sold)
• Officium Parvum Beatae Mariae Virginis, Breviario Romano Excerptum, cum Litaniis Sanctorum (1944). (sold)
• The New Testament of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Confraternity edition (1947). (sold)
• Nicholson, Liturgical Music in Benedictine Monasticism: A Post-Vatican II Survey (1986). (sold)
• To Prefer Nothing to Christ: Saint Meinrad Archabbey 1854-2004 (2004). Still available
• Hood, From Repatriation to Revival: Continuity and Change in the English Benedictine Congregation, 1795-1850 (2014). Still available
• The (Old) St. Basil's Hymnal (1935). (sold)
• The New Saint Basil Hymnal, Accompaniment Edition (1958). (sold)
• The Pius X Hymnal (1956), large format edition. (sold)
• The St. Gregory Hymnal and Catholic Choir Book, Complete Edition (1947). (sold)

To purchase any of these or to ask me a question, please use my NLM address (pkwasniewski@newliturgicalmovement.org).

Continue Reading this Article. . .

A Special Hymn for the Assumption

In the Roman Rite, there are traditionally only three hymns generally used on feasts of the Virgin Mary. These are Ave, Maris Stella, which is sung at Vespers, Quem terra at Matins, and O gloriosa Domina at Lauds; the second and third of these were originally two parts of the same hymn, divided for liturgical use. Among the many other hymns composed in the Middle Ages in honor of the Virgin, a standout is O quam glorifica, an anonymous composition of the ninth century, possibly earlier, which was adopted by several churches for use on the Assumption. At Sarum, it was sung at First Vespers of the feast, while the Parisian Use placed it at Matins, and from these extended it to the Little Office of the Virgin. It was incorporated into the Latin version of the Liturgy of the Hours, although it was not assigned to the Assumption, but to Lauds of Our Lady’s Queenship on August 22, which is now the de facto octave of the Assumption. This is a piece whose complex Latin meter makes for a rather odd word order, and a prime example of a work to which translation perhaps does more than a little injustice. It is here sung by the Trappist monks of Gethsemani Abbey in Kentucky, in a recording from 1958; the Cistercian tradition also places it at first Vespers of the feast.

O quam glorifica luce coruscas, Stirpis Davidicae regia proles! Sublimis residens, Virgo Maria, Supra caeligenas aetheris omnes.	O with how glorious light thou shinest, royal offspring of David’s race! dwelling on high, O Virgin Mary, Above all the regions of heaven.
Tu cum virgineo mater honore, Caelorum Domino pectoris aulam Sacris visceribus casta parasti; Natus hinc Deus est corpore Christus.	Thou, chaste mother with virginal honor, prepared in thy holy womb a dwelling place for the Lord of heaven; hence God, Christ, was born in a body.
Quem cunctus venerans orbis adorat, Cui nunc rite genuflectitur omne; A quo te, petimus, subveniente, Abjectis tenebris, gaudia lucis.	Whom all the word adores in veneration, before whom every knee rightfully bends, From whom we ask, as thou comest to help, the joys of light, and the casting away    of darkness.
Hoc largire Pater luminis omnis, Natum per proprium, Flamine sacro, Qui tecum nitida vivit in aethra Regnans, ac moderans saecula cuncta.   Amen.	Grant this, Father of all light, Through thine own Son, by the Holy Spirit, who with liveth in the bright heaven, ruling and governing all the ages.   Amen.

The Beauty of Holiness: An Appreciation of the Campion Missal

Among my favorite verses from Saint Paul is this, in the Epistle to the Philippians:

Brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is gracious, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things. (Phil 4:8). 

Unlike worldly men who think, speak, and act more or less as they please (to the extent that they can get away with it), Christians are supposed to live conscientiously in the sight of their heavenly Master, thinking on Him and how to please Him. Instead of thinking on what is ugly, clumsy, vile, ignoble, or vicious, they should train their minds to true doctrine, honorable principles, just deeds, pure affections, lovely and gracious ideas, images, and words. In short, they are to strive for praiseworthy excellence in all things—and that striving should, of course, extend especially to everything connected with the sacred liturgy, the very “source and summit” of the Christian life. Here, we do not, we cannot, settle for what is mediocre, slipshod, superficial, profane, or unworthy of the temple of God; we aim at the beautiful, the holy, the finely made and nobly done, as much as lies in our tradition and in our power.

These words in Philippians bring to mind a statement in Saint Paul’s Epistle to the Romans: 

Do not be conformed to this world but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that you may prove what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. (Rom 12:2)

“Good and acceptable and perfect.” Is this our program for liturgical life, for sacred music, books, vestments, vessels, furnishings, architecture? Do we seek that which is good because it has the requisite qualities of holiness, artistry, and universality? That which is acceptable to the Lord because it accords with the traditions, teachings, and laws He has given us? That which is as perfect as we can make it, because it shares in that litany of attributes related in Philippians?

A comparison of the Campion Missal (Solemn Mass section)
and a popular daily missal

It is such thoughts as these, together with a compelling sense of good news that must be shouted from the rooftops, that prompt me to share with the readers of NLM my personal reaction to the Saint Edmund Campion Missal & Hymnal. I say “personal reaction” because I do not intend to offer a standard review; the content and layout of the Campion Missal have already been reviewed and discussed in a number of excellent articles, which may be found gathered here. 

My intention is to praise this book as a book that, to an unusual degree, embodies exactly what Saint Paul says to the Philippians and the Romans—to such an extent, indeed, that it should grace the shelf of every Catholic layman, deacon, priest, and bishop, and fill the pews of every church and chapel privileged with at least the Sunday celebration of the traditional Latin Mass. I would add that no Catholic bookstore or gift shop should fail to stock this book.

Why are the reviews gushing with superlatives, exclamations, and imperatives for acquisition? Why all this enthusiasm, this (as it were) sober inebriation? After all, a book is just a book, one might think, and there are several missals already in print for the usus antiquior. What makes the Campion Missal special?

A comparison of the Campion Missal (Low Mass section)
and the familiar red booklet

Let me try to say this as simply as possible: this book is a magnificent book. It is stunningly beautiful. It contains all the texts of the Mass for Sundays and Holy Days, well translated, handsomely typeset, tastefully ornamented, and lavishly illustrated. It is a treasure-trove of all that is most true, honorable, just, pure, lovely, and gracious in the Roman Rite; from the first to the last page, it is a manual of liturgical, spiritual, and theological excellence, speaking and singing of mysteries and mercies and majesty, of all that is ultimately and eternally worthy of praise. And as a result, it causes one to think about these things—to ponder them long, with joy and wonder, with fear and trembling, with inward peace and consolation, with a spirit of reverence and adoration. Its greatest glory, one might say, is precisely that it humbly helps along that process of the Christian’s transformation by the renewal of his mind, turning it again and again to heavenly realities. It could have been called the Epiphany or Theophany Missal, so well does it open up vistas of meditation and prompt one to prayer.

In a world of video games and movies, sexual utilitarianism, flashy advertising and journalistic manipulation, people have a hard time understanding beauty pure and simple—beauty as a gift from God, to be welcomed and rejoiced in as part of our prayer of praise and thanksgiving to Him. The traditional Mass and sacramental rites and Divine Office are full of a transcendent spiritual beauty that brings deep joy and peace to a receptive soul, but obviously not without the participation of the body at every stage. It is precisely the aesthetic dimension, the sensuous appeal, that first captivates the mind and stirs the heart, leading the worshiper from shadows and images to mystery and truth, and back again, in an upward spiral. The external beauty of the traditional liturgy serves an evangelistic and catechetical role even as it prepares the way for a more profound internal experience of the Lord. The external and the internal are in harmony, as body and soul are created to be.

The Campion Missal layout for the Propers of the Mass:
here, Palm Sunday

Because man has both a soul and a body, it is important that the entire experience of worship be dignified, well-ordered, and beautiful, as befits its inner nature. By providing in a single book all that is or could be needed for Sunday and Holy Day Masses—the Order of the Mass, the Propers of the day, a complete Kyriale, and a generous selection of hymns—the Campion Missal facilitates a full and fruitful participation in the Mass, both interiorly (which is the most important kind of participation) and exteriorly, in all the ways called for by Holy Mother Church, in keeping with the teaching of Pope Saint Pius X and all of his successors.

The care for beauty in the Campion Missal extends to the smallest detail, and, far from being old-fashioned, has an adventurous side as well: Corpus Christi Watershed commissioned Kevin Allen, one of our most gifted composers of sacred music, to contribute several new hymn tunes for the book. Exquisitely crafted and eminently singable, with noble lyrics truly worthy of the liturgy, these new hymns stand as worthy heirs of the English hymn tradition brought to its peak by the likes of Ralph Vaughan Williams and Gustav Holst almost a century ago.

(A digression on hymns: if any reader is wondering whether the Campion Missal has enough hymns in it, this would be my response. There are 151 hymns in the book—a generous number in the context of the Extraordinary Form, where hymn-singing, though it finds a legitimate place, does not have nearly the prominence it does in many Ordinary Form situations. Nevertheless, to focus on the quantity of hymns is to miss a crucially important point. Like the Campion Missal’s chief editor Jeffrey Ostrowski, I have in my personal library a large collection of traditional hymnals from the 19th century to the present, and I have found, in scanning their pages, that it is rare indeed to find a hymnal from which a discerning music director could make use of even 50% of the pieces included. The rest are just too painfully sentimental or musically inept or textually vapid or all of the above. The genius of Ostrowski is that, drawing upon his good taste as a musician and his sound theology as a traditional Catholic, he has brought together 151 of the choicest hymns—the most singable and beloved, as well as lesser known or new hymns with soaring melodies and profound texts. Whereas most hymnals are like a flea market of good, bad, and indifferent, an Ostrowski hymnal is like a satchel of precious and semiprecious stones: every item is beautiful and apt for its purpose. Hence, I would rather have the 151 choiceworthy hymns of the Campion Missal and sing every single one, than sift through 400 hymns of wildly variable musical and textual quality in hopes that I can find enough to satisfy.)

from the Low Mass section

As I draw to a close, I am afraid that my words will be inadequate for those who have not yet held and viewed and prayed with the Campion Missal and totally unnecessary for those who have already seen it with their eyes and taken it to heart. All that I can do is express my amazement that such a book has been created and published in our day and age, when so much of the print world seems to be vanishing into the internet, and so much that remains in print has declined desperately and pathetically in quality. Whoever owns the Campion Missal will find it a princely book, a golden measure for what can be done when human talent throws itself passionately into the glories of the sacred liturgy, for the glory of God. I predict that it will become a cherished, even necessary companion to every Catholic who uses it to pray the traditional Mass.

To read more about the Campion Missal, for more photographs, and for information on placing orders, go here.

A postscript: the Campion Missal is now in its second edition. The first edition had a very colorful cover and florid graphics in the center section. The second edition, while mostly the same, has a more “classic” look to it: the cover is a subdued slate gray, the Solemn Mass section more restrained and easier to follow. A handy ribbon has been added and a few typos were corrected. However, the pagination and contents of both editions are IDENTICAL in all other respects, so they are entirely compatible.