What Determines the Organization of GIA Hymnals?

In the past twenty or so years, nearly every major Christian denomination in the Unites States has compiled a new hymnal. When examining these books—especially the newer ones—it becomes strikingly apparent that all Christian denominations, including Roman Catholics, sing a great deal of the same hymnody. Even many of the hymns that are unique to one denominational hymnbook can often just as easily be found in the songbook of another Christian church.

This may prompt one to ask why all Christians couldn’t simply share a single hymnal with the addition of denominational supplements. The answer is rather immediately apparent. A lot is said about the beliefs, particular theological and ecclesiastical emphases and liturgical or worship practices of a denomination by the way its hymnbook is organized. As a case in point, the Seventh-day Adventist hymnal begins with 69 hymns under the general heading of WORSHIP, with subheadings being Adoration and Praise, Morning Worship, Evening Worship, Opening of Worship, and Close of Worship. Then follows 3 hymns to the TRINITY, 41 addressed to GOD THE FATHER under various attributes, 142 hymns addressed to JESUS CHRIST covering his life and ministry, 13 addressed to the HOLY SPIRIT, and on to such general headings as HOLY SCRIPTURES (7 hymns), GOSPEL (68 hymns), CHRISTIAN CHURCH (36 hymns), DOCTRINES (40 hymns), EARLY ADVENT (17 hymns), CHRISTIAN LIFE (195 hymns), and CHRISTIAN HOME (36 hymns). A careful study of this hymnal begins to give an overview of Seventh-day Adventist theology. It’s been said: Tell me what you sing, and I’ll tell you what you believe.

Back in 1975 when GIA published Worship II, we organized the entire book alphabetically by title. While we thought of this as a user-friendly innovation at the time, we soon repented of this action. GIA hymnals are Roman Catholic service books. Therefore, all subsequent GIA hymnals have been designed to reflect something of who we are as a Christian family.

Many Protestant hymnals—and some Catholic ones, too—begin with hymns. Since, however, we as Roman Catholics (along with other “liturgical” churches) center our corporate worship activity around the celebration of ritual, GIA made a firm and conscious decision to place all liturgical material at the beginning of our hymnbooks. In RitualSong, for example, this material constitutes about 40% of the book.

Our hymnals begin with daily prayer—Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, and in some cases, Night Prayer, the prayer for every day by which we sanctify each day—followed by the Psalms, the biblical hymnbook of the Judeo-Christian tradition. These psalms, of course, are set to music for praying in song, as is their nature.

Then one finds the Order of Mass (Eucharist), followed by the other sacramental rites of the Church, beginning with the rites of initiation and concluding with the Order of Christian Funerals. The service music (ritual music) concludes these sections that precede the hymns.

When we do reach the hymns and songs, the ordering of these 504 items (RitualSong) serves as a constant reminder of the rhythm of our worship life as Catholic Christians. Just as there is a clear pattern to the organization of the Seventh-day Adventist hymnal outlined above, the clear pattern of hymn placement in GIA’s hymnals, beginning with Advent, focuses on the liturgical year and highlights all its important moments in relative proportion to their rank in the liturgical calendar.

Thus, GIA hymnbooks, by their very structure, are instruments for a subtle but continuous whole parish liturgical catechesis, reminding their users of who we are and how we celebrate, while highlighting the shape and rhythms of the Church year. With the increasing familiarity that comes with many years of hymnal use—a book that many consider to be the people’s book of theology and liturgics—Catholics cannot help but grow in a deeper understanding of these basic defining elements.

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