Four GIA Hymnals Slated to Coincide with
Implementation of the Revised Order of Mass
The wide range of GIA editors, both full-time staff members and those working on specific projects, have been working overtime to develop new hymnals for the twenty-first century Church. Each of these projects will reflect the high standards the Church has come to expect from GIA hymnals. Each will have a unique focus designed to meet the needs of diverse American Catholic communities. All are truly comprehensive hymnals (featuring musical diversity), two are designed to serve multicultural communities, and one is the first-ever cover-to-cover bilingual, English-Spanish hymnal.
Worship–Fourth Edition
The tradition of the Worship hymnals began in 1971. Worship II and Worship–Third Edition followed in 1975 and 1986, respectively. Together, they account for the greatest number of GIA hymnals used in Catholic parishes in this country over those years, with hundreds of thousands of the latest edition still in use. It is fitting, then, that our newest top-of-the-line hymnal should be its fourth edition.
Lots will be new! Unlike its two most recent predecessors, the fourth edition will be comprehensive, much in the style of GIA’s RitualSong. While it will include a substantial collection of the finest organ-based hymnody, it will also include the best-loved contemporary music, and shorter “world music” pieces; a significant amount of the core material will have Spanish translations. The single feature about which we are most enthusiastic, though, is its wide-range exploration of hymn texts by modern writers—those writing for today’s church. For immediate accessibility, a majority of these hymns will be matched with well-known, well-loved tunes.
The five editors—Kelly Dobbs Mickus, senior editor, Robert Batastini, Fr. James Chepponis, Charles Gardner, and Fr. Ronald Krisman—have devoted a tremendous amount of energy and expertise to assembling an outstanding body of hymns matched to each Sunday of the three-year Lectionary. While these hymns will be distributed throughout the book according to thematic category, the Hymn of the Day calendar will point directly to an exceptionally appropriate hymn for each Sunday and solemnity of the church year, with tunes that are likely to be familiar.
Gather Comprehensive—Second Edition Revised
Though having a somewhat shifted emphasis from Worship, our Gather hymnals, especially the green Gather Comprehensive, have enjoyed unprecedented adoption by parishes across America for a single hymnal edition. Its successor, Gather Comprehensive—Second Edition, was published just as church authorities came forward with the intent to revise the English translation of the Roman Missal. Despite respectable sales, many parishes delayed the retirement of their green books, awaiting a new hymnal with the revised Order of Mass.
Since the second edition of Gather Comprehensive is still fairly new, it is too early for GIA to think about a third edition. Rather, the present edition will be revised with all of the numbers from 134 through 322 replaced either with new music written for the forthcoming translation or existing settings adapted by the composers for the new text. The rest of the numbering will not change, so that parishes already having copies of GC II, may opt, for example, to just purchase new choir books, using the free Order of Mass and service music supplement that GIA will provide for the assembly.
Of course, for those parishes replacing old hymnals with the revised GC II, all editions— pew, choir, and accompaniments—will be all-new editions.
Lead Me, Guide Me—Second Edition
This revision has been a long time coming, and we guarantee it will be worth the wait. The project began some years ago with a discernment meeting chaired by Archbishop Wilton Gregory and attended by a distinguished group of African American clergy, liturgists, musicians, and GIA staff. It gave focus to the revision and spawned a core committee consisting of Msgr. Raymond East, chairman; Robert Batastini, project coordinator; Dr. James Abbington; Marcia Berry; Richard Cheri; Dr. Norah Duncan IV; Sr. Joan Angela Edwards, SSM; Kenneth Louis; and Fr. J-Glenn Murray, SJ.
While the original Lead Me, Guide Me was subtitled “The African American Catholic Hymnal,” the new edition recognizes that many communities, while being predominantly African American, are in fact significantly multicultural. Lead Me, Guide Me II will be greatly expanded from the original in that it will include the full breadth of African American church music that is suitable for Catholic worship, a representative selection of music from Africa and the Caribbean, and a large cross-section of the common Catholic repertoire of our day.
The latest music editing advances have enabled significant strides toward printing the music to reflect performance practices in the African American church more than in the first edition of this hymnal.
The new LMGM will have a complete three-year set of Lectionary psalms composed by some of today’s finest African American composers.
Oramos Cantando/We Pray in Song
The title of this groundbreaking project is in both Spanish and English to reflect the fact that every item in the book, from cover to cover, is in both languages. This is the first-ever, truly bilingual hymnal. It is intended for multicultural, Latino-Anglo parishes for whom praying and singing in Spanish and English is part of the diverse mix of their ongoing parish life.
The texts of all the Spanish music, whether from Spain, Mexico, the Caribbean, or newly composed, have been carefully translated into English by skilled bilingual hymnwriters, and all English-language hymns and songs—traditional and contemporary—have been equally well translated into Spanish. This book provides options for the multicultural parish that have never before existed.
The hymnal has been compiled by a group of editors consisting of Fr. Ronald Krisman, general editor, and an editorial team consisting of Sr. Rosa Maria Icaza, CCVI; Dr. Dolores Martinez; Donna Peña; and Fr. Juan Sosa. Robert Batastini served as project director until his retirement when that task was assumed by Fr. Krisman.
Oramos Cantando/We Pray in Song is a truly comprehensive collection that will thoroughly serve both the Anglo community and the Latino community, and be a tool that can help bridge the two. It has a complete three-year set of bilingual Lectionary psalms, each of which can be sung in either language or in a bilingual version.