Author: Adam Bartlett

A Chant Café poll:

Imagine that you are in a parish that is slowly and gradually transitioning from “4-hymn sandwich” liturgy to singing the proper antiphons of the Mass. You are doing catechesis on the nature of the proper antiphons as being integral to the liturgy, and are helping your parishioners understand that singing hymns in place of these proper texts is ultimately a substitution for something that is a substantial part of the liturgy. You realize that hymns will not likely disappear from your parish’s liturgical celebrations any time soon and you need a small collection of congregational hymns that can serve you through this process of transition, and can serve as supplemental congregational material for liturgical and devotional use even after the propers have been restored to their rightful place.

Which 150 hymns do you want to have in the pews of your parish? Based upon consistency with Catholic doctrine and Church teaching, sound tradition, beauty, dignity, effectiveness, and so on and so forth, which hymns should every Catholic be familiar with and be comfortable singing?

Here is my current working list at my parish. What is missing? What should be removed? Why? Please share your thoughts in the comment box!

(all chant hymns listed by their Latin title presume a singing translation in English in addition to the Latin text)

• A Hymn of Glory Let Us Sing
• Adoro Te Devote
• All Creatures of Our God and King
• All Glory, Laud and Honor
• All People Who on Earth Do Dwell
• All Praise to Thee, My God This Night
• Alleluia, Alleluia
• Alleluia, Sing to Jesus
• Alma Redemptoris Mater
• Angels From the Realms of Glory
• Angels We Have Heard on High
• As With Gladness Men of Old
• At the Lamb’s High Feast We Sing
• Attende Domine
• Ave Maris Stella
• Ave Regina Caelorum
• Ave Verum Corpus
• Away in a Manger
• Beautiful Savior
• Christ the Lord is Risen Today
• Come, Holy Ghost
• Come, Thou Almighty King
• Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus
• Creator of the Stars of Night
• Crown Him With Many Crowns
• Crux Fidelis
• Faith of Our Fathers
• For All the Saints
• For the Beauty of the Earth
• Forty Days and Forty Nights
• Go Make of All Disciples
• God, We Praise You
• Hail the Day that Sees Him Rise
• Hail to the Lord’s Annointed
• Hail, Holy Queen Enthroned Above
• Hark! The Herald Angels Sing
• Holy God, We Praise Thy Name
• Holy, Holy, Holy
• I Heard the Voice of Jesus Say
• I Know That My Redeemer Lives
• I Sing the Mighty Power of God
• Immaculate Mary
• Jesu Dulcis Memoria
• Jesus Christ is Risen Today
• Joy to the World
• Joyful, Joyful We Adore Thee
• Let All Mortal Flesh Keep Silence
• Lift High the Cross
• Lift Up Your Heads, Ye Mighty Gates
• Lo, How a Rose E’er Blooming
• Lord of All Hopefulness
• Lord, Who at Thy First Eucharist
• Lord, Who Throughout These Forty Days
• Lord, You Give the Great Commission
• Love Divine, All Loves Excelling
• Merciful Savior
• Now Thank We All Our God
• O Breathe on Me, O Breath of God
• O Come, All Ye Faithful/Adeste Fideles
• O Come, O Come, Emmanuel
• O God, Beyond All Praising
• O Holy Spirit, by Whose Breath
• O Sacred Head, Surrounded
• O Salutaris Hostia (chant)
• O Salutaris Hostia (Werner)
• O Sanctissima
• Of the Father’s Love Begotten
• On Jordan’s Bank
• Once in Royal David’s City
• Pange Lingua
• Panis Angelicus (chant)
• Panis Angelicus (Lambilotte)
• Parce Domine
• Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow
• Praise to the Lord, the Almighty
• Regina Caeli
• Salve Regina
• Silent Night
• Sing of Mary, Pure and Lowly
• Sing With All the Saints in Glory
• Songs of Thankfulness and Praise
• Soul of My Savior
• Stabat Mater
• Tantum Ergo (chant)
• Tantum Ergo (St. Thomas)
• The Church’s One Foundation
• The First Nowell
• The Glory of these Forty Days (Old Hundreth)
• The King of Love My Shepherd Is
• The Strife is O’er
• There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy
• To Jesus Christ, Our Sovereign King
• Ubi Caritas (chant)
• Veni Creator Spiritus
• We Three Kings of Orent Are
• What Child is This

Some of you may already be familiar with Gregorio, a newly developed platform for the typesetting of Gregorian chant. Gregorio is a free and open source software that was created with the hope that everyone everywhere would have access to free and beautiful editions of Gregorian chant for use in the liturgy. Many projects have taken up Gregorio as the means of engraving Gregorian chant scores. Our own Simple English Propers project uses it, as does Steven van Roode, as do many others around the world in their work of chant engraving.

Although Gregorio is an open and free software, you can still make donations to the project here.

Andrew Hinkley is something of an anomaly in the world of chant engraving. Andrew has a particular passion for making chant editions readily available, scalable, and easily adaptable, and so far has typeset the majority of the Graduale Romanum chants in the Gregorio platform which he has been sharing with the world, in a beta phase, at the Caecilia Project.

Here is a rendering of Andrew’s work with the Graduale Romanum propers for the 3rd Sunday of Advent.

Keep in mind that this is simply one rendering of the Gregorio code (GABC) which can be used to create Gregorian chant scores. This code, which Andrew intends also to share freely with all, can be encoded in a variety of ways, easily changing fonts, page size, staff size, margins, colors, spacing, and on and on. That Andrew is producing this raw data is an immeasurable gift to us and to the world of sacred music. He is to be highly commended for his most generous gift to the Church.

What is truly wonderful about Andrew’s project is that it is truly “open source”, meaning that Gregorian chants have truly been boiled down into source code that can be used in unimaginable ways.

Thank you Andrew for your tireless work for the good of the liturgy.