Baloney Sandwich

Mr. Franklin Jennings writes: "I'll sing in an ordinary form liturgy just about the time I hear the cantor intoning the Propers. Heaven deliver us from the four hymn sandwich. Somebody wrote the propers for good reason."

Well said, sir, and understandable given that the sandwiches served up in most Catholic churches are made with Wonder Bread and Cheez-food product. It can be done better: in most Anglo-Catholic churches the minor propers are song as well the four hymn sandwich. The difference is in the hymns. The 1940 Episcopal Hymnal, most often used in A-C parishes, may be the finest collection of hymns ever assembled. Not only are most of the tunes (composers/arrangers include, Palestrina, J.S. Bach, S.S. Wesley, Sir Arthur Sullivan, Holst and Vaughan Williams, to name a few) and the set verses top notch, the hymns are meticulously arranged by subject and chronology so the music director and the priest may select hymns pertinent to the Mass. Further, in most Anglican churches you will find the "choir edition" of the hymnal in the pews so congregants may sing parts if they like (and many do). Every verse is sung.

In many Catholic churches I've attended there doesn't seem to be much thought given to hymn selection save for ease of playing by the often incompetent organist (by the way, those funny-looking wooden sticks at the bottom of the thing are called "pedals" and can actually be played!). Also, the only function for the hymn in some RC churches is to serve as a bumper. When it's time to move on it's rallentando and coda, no matter where you happen to be. Then there are the hymns themselves: many wonderful hymns are found in Catholic hymnals but others are simply deplorable. I recently saw in the Adoremus Hymnal a sweet and lilting tune used as a setting for a condemnation of abortion. I am vehemently and unalterably opposed to that despicable and murderous act--no argument there--but I don't want to sing about it either; same for the Holocaust and pederasty.

So please don't come down on hymn singing. Done right, it is enormously uplifting and it can be done right in Catholic churches: go to High Mass at Fr. Rutler's Church of Our Saviour in New York and listen to great hymns, well accompanied and song with gusto. You'll swear you're among Protestants . . . well, for a little bit, anyway.