From Father Kevin, St. Alphonsus Pastor
March 26, 2023 - Hymnals Returning
As we continue to search for our next Director of Music and Liturgy (as I write this we have an audition scheduled), I wanted to let you know of an upcoming change in how we get the music for the hymns to you at Mass. Prior to the pandemic, the parish used the paperback Breaking Bread Hymnals published by OCP. Those hymnals were an annual subscription based hymnal, needing to be replaced every year. When the pandemic hit, it was thought that having multiple sets of hands on hymnals was not a good thing and we switched to printing the order of worship ourselves.
After consultation with the Liturgy committee and with the leadership of our music ministry we have decided to return to hymnals after Easter Sunday. Instead of using the Breaking Bread hymnals, we will be using the Glory and Praise Hymnals, which are also published by OCP and contain many of the songs in our music ministry repertoire. It just so happened that our neighboring parish, St. John the Evangelist, was seeking to donate 500 lightly used copies of this hymnal and they offered them to us.
Given our context, using hymnals has a few key advantages. First, they will aid in the selection of music during this transitional period, both as we continue this search for a new director and when our new director arrives and is working to get settled. Secondly, just like the Breaking Bread hymnals, the Glory and Praise Hymnals contain all three lectionary cycles of Sunday readings for those who like to have the Word of God in front of them during Mass. Third, printing the orders of worship booklets is very costly and finally, this will be more environmentally friendly as we can reduce the amount of paper we are using.
We will begin using these hymnals after Easter.