“The Newman Hymnal” has been a staple at the Basilica of the Sacred Heart and residence halls around campus for the past decade, but the familiar blue books will be retired at the end of the school year. Campus Ministry has purchased “Gather IV” hymnals, published by GIA Publications, to be used in all campus chapels beginning in May.
Due to strict copyright rules, Notre Dame is not able to reprint or order new copies of “The Newman Hymnal.” As new buildings and chapels have been built around campus, the old hymnal has not been able to meet demand, necessitating a change.
Campus Ministry hosted a launch party on Sunday for the new hymnal in Coleman-Morse. Liturgical music directors from many residence halls and members of campus choirs gathered to view the new hymnal. Jonathan Hehn, assistant director of the Liturgical Choir, led the attendees in a variety of hymns from the new hymnal.
“One of the brilliant things about this text that I really love is that it not only is explicitly about gathering, but it also focuses 100% on the agency of God and gathering us together and then calling us as God’s people to go out and do good work,” Hehn said.
The tour gave a few examples of songs for different Mass parts, including entrance hymns, psalms and communion hymns. Patrick Kronner, the director of the Magnificat Choir, emphasized that the new hymnal provides increased flexibility in both instrumentation and music selection.
“One of the wonderful things about this new hymnal is that we have all sorts of resources that every hall will be getting,” Kronner said. “This, for example, is the C instrument book, so there’s descants, harmonization, all kinds of stuff for C instruments.”
Residence halls will also have access to supplement books for piano, guitar, B flat and E flat instruments. Additional flexibility will come from the sheer volume of music available. “Gather IV” includes over 1,100 songs compared to roughly 750 in “The Newman Hymnal.” Students can be content in knowing that nearly all of their favorite hymns will still be included, including Notre Dame-specific music bound into the back of the volume.
“[The hymnals] are going to have a specifically customized supplement in the back for Notre Dame’s use that will include things like the ‘Mass for Our Lady,’ the Alma Mater and ‘Holy Cross to Thee Be Glory,’” said Allie Steiner, coordinator of special projects at Campus Ministry.
Steiner played a large role in securing the new hymnals. She said that the new hymnal project would not have been possible without input from the students actually doing the singing.
“We assembled a focus group of students from Liturgical Choir, Magnificat Choir and Folk Choir, in addition to musicians from various residence halls to solicit their input on the hymnal content,” she wrote in a statement to The Observer.
The new hymnals will be placed in campus residence halls in May after students have moved out for the summer. After the last Mass of the school year in each chapel, attendees will be asked to grab the hymnals from their pew and place them in a receptacle to be recycled.
Campus Ministry has also created a webpage of Mass-planning and choral resources with the goal of making liturgical music more accessible to students in residence halls. Included on the page are tips on selecting music, psalm settings and information about both the old and new hymnals in order to ease the transition.
“For a couple of years now we’ll have a group of people that are familiar with [both of the hymnals],” Kronner said. “[On the website] you can see a complete index of both hymnals and where things are existing or not.”
GIA Publications also has a variety of resources for planning Masses. But ultimately, said Hehn, there is no single, correct way to prepare music for Mass.
“The goal is to get your people to sing,” Hehn said. “It’s an oral tradition, so the book is never right. The people are always right, because the song belongs to the people.”
