Frequently Asked Questions

The St. Michael Hymnal is published by St. Boniface Parish in Lafayette, Indiana. The contents of the hymnal are professionally typeset by Five Line Productions. The hymnal is printed on quality paper and bound with a handsome hardcover.

In 1992, Linda Schafer undertook direction of St. Boniface’s choir, later entitled the St. Boniface Schola Cantorum, a post she retained when Fr. Timothy Alkire became pastor of St. Boniface Parish in 1994. Together, church organist Scott Kemmer, Linda Schafer, and Fr. Alkire began a project to renew liturgical music at St. Boniface in the spirit of the directives of the Second Vatican Council. The challenges were these:

• To obey the directives of the Council by giving Gregorian chant ”pride of place” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, #116), and also to orient the music to the standards first articulated by Pope St. Pius X in 1903: holiness, true artistry, and universality (Tre Le Sollicitudini, #8).
• To form a repertoire for the choir with increasing emphasis on Gregorian chant, polyphony, and more traditional hymnody; and to assist the congregation with “full, conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations” (Sacrosanctum Concilium, #14) by producing a usable collection of music which could serve the needs of a bi-lingual parish of over 3,000 members in all the diverse aspects of parish life from Mass, weddings, and funerals, to Benediction, Vespers, and Eucharistic Processions.

The goal was to begin at St. Boniface, in a small way, with patience and charity, the reclamation and restoration of the musical patrimony of the Catholic Church. The St. Boniface Schola Cantorum and the St. Michael Hymnal were the final result of this effort. The St. Michael Hymnal was first published for the use of the parish in 1998. Growing interest, beginning first with several parishes in the Diocese of Lincoln, and then spreading by word of mouth, convinced Fr. Alkire to publish the hymnal officially and make it available to parishes around the country.

The 5th Edition of the hymnal was produced in 2020. Its reputation continues to grow, both for the orthodoxy of its texts and for the beauty of its musical collection.

First of all, the hymnal retains the traditional language of the hymns, with no politically driven language. The very few changes in texts are poetic or practical choices.

Secondly, as far as we know, the St. Michael Hymnal is still the only Catholic hymnal in this country that includes (and has included since the first edition) substantially the entire contents of “Jubilate Deo,” the collection of Gregorian chants that Pope Paul VI sent to all bishops in 1976, asking that they be preserved.

Thirdly, this hymnal is the fruit of a parish that has for many years tried to be faithful and obedient to Holy Mother Church. We believe that the St. Michael Hymnal is very usable in any parish that would like to reclaim and restore some of the traditional music of the Church without moving precipitously or too hastily.

The name was chosen because St. Boniface Parish had unofficially adopted the great archangel as patron and protector. We continue to feel a deep and real devotion to him, and are happy to place this project under his patronage.

Both notations have their strengths and weaknesses. There are at least two reasons for using the traditional four-line Gregorian chant notation: firstly, the notation immediately signals that what we are singing is something out of the ordinary, something reserved for the Catholic liturgy and peculiar to it. Secondly, once a very few basics are learned, the four-line notation is actually easier to read and sing than the modern notation.

However, in introducing chant to a congregation, it is sometimes easier to overcome reluctance if the look of the chant is not too foreign; for that reason, modern notation is sometimes helpful and can open the door to the singing of Gregorian chant in a parish.

In the fifth edition, as in the fourth, the 6 Latin chant mass ordinaries have been printed in traditional four-line Gregorian chant notation. The many Latin chant hymns in the hymnal are printed in stemless modern (five-line) notation, as they were in the third edition of the hymnal.

There are currently multiple resources for good psalmody, both online and in printed form. Further, many parishes still prefer to use a missalette or other booklet for the readings, and most of those resources include a setting of the Responsorial Psalm.

Constraints of size and resources do not make it possible to include the texts of the Sunday Mass readings in the hymnal.

For parishes who are looking for a publication that includes the texts of the Sunday Mass readings, there are multiple missalette/resources available that can be used in addition to the hymnal.

As the Church has always incorporated worthwhile contributions from other traditions, so we have included some of the great hymns from other Christian sources.

As has been observed, “regardless of confessional origin, there are certain musics (and, indeed, other of the arts) which are so profound as expressions of human and Christian faith and spirituality that they transcend confessional boundaries, and have become the property of all. What, indeed, states a Catholic truth, IS, regardless of its origin, CATHOLIC, and shares in the patrimony common to all of Christendom.”

The hymns have been and will continue to be arranged in alphabetical order.

In the back of the hymnal there are extensive liturgical and topical indices, offering hymns suggestions for particular seasons and occasions.

In the future, we hope to add a page on this website giving hymn planning suggestions for each Sunday of the year.