Introducing the Lumen Christi Missal

Dear friends of the Chant Café, servants of the sacred liturgy and advocates of the Church’s sacred music tradition:  I am very excited to introduce to you for the first time the Lumen Christi Missal, the first offering of the all-new Illuminare Publications.

The Lumen Christi Missal is a new kind of book for the pew. It contains everything that your parish needs to Sing the Mass, not Sing at Mass.

Here’s a brief overview.

What the Lumen Christi Missal is NOT:

• It is not a hand missal. It is a Mass book that equips your parish to sing the Mass.
• It is not a hymnal. It contains no hymns, only liturgical texts with musical settings that are suitable for a liturgical assembly.
• It is not a missalette. It is a permanent, beautiful, hard bound book that contains all readings, proper, ordinary and necessary liturgical texts for Sundays and Feasts, over the three-year cycle, set to be sung.

What the Lumen Christi Missal IS:

• It is a new kind of pew book, built upon the new English translation of the Roman Missal, which takes as its basis the “sung liturgy” envisioned and promoted by the Second Vatican Council in Sacrosanctum Concilium and the General Instruction of the Roman Missal.
• It is a complete pew resource that can be used entirely by itself, or in conjunction with a hymnal or resource containing hymns and songs.
• It is a book that embraces the authentic and universal sacred music tradition of the church and seeks to give Gregorian chant the “main place” in liturgical celebrations (GIRM 41).
• It is a book that is modeled upon the three-fold plan for congregational singing laid out in Musicam Sacram 28-31.
• It is a book that provides simple chant settings for parts proper to the congregation: The Order of Mass, the Ordinary of the Mass, Responsorial Psalms and Alleluias, and also simple seasonal settings of the Proper Antiphons for when the full proper is not sung by the schola or choir.
• It is a book primarily for the liturgy celebrated in English, though it contains several portions of the Order of Mass and Ordinary in Latin in their Gregorian chant settings found in the official liturgical books.
• It is a book that can assist your parish in a gradual transition toward the Church’s vision of the sung liturgy, solemnly celebrated, and allows a parish to slowly progress toward this aim.
• It is a book that is equally suited to a suburban or country parish or an urban cathedral, simply containing the Mass in the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite.
• It is a beautiful, permanent, dignified, complete pew resource that speaks of the timeless beauty of the liturgy of the Roman Rite and will be available soon to parishes at an affordable price.

Find out more

The Lumen Christi Missal is currently in preparation and will be available in the first quarter of 2012, just in time to replace your worn-out pew cards. If you would like to join our mailing and stay up to date on the latest news, updates and release details please click here.

The Lumen Christi Missal is the first book in the Lumen Christi Series by Illuminare Publications. The series will also include the Lumen Christi Gradual, a companion book for the choir, accompaniment editions and more, all coming in 2012!

If your parish would like to participate in our pilot program and receive the Lumen Christi Missal at a discounted price please contact us.

On a personal note, to Chant Café readers, this is a project that I have been developing for close to a year now. It was birthed out of my work on the Simple English Propers project, is infused with its spirit, and seeks to serve more broadly the renewal of the sacred liturgy in the English-speaking world. Illuminare Publications is committed to fostering sacred music as free gift to the Church and seeks to find creative ways to serve the liturgical apostolate in the 21st century through forward-thinking uses of technology and creative and non-conventional business models.

I will be posting more in the coming weeks and months on the work of Illuminare Publications, especially the Lumen Christi Missal.

I couldn’t be more excited about the new chapter that is now opening in the Church with the new translation of the Roman Missal. I hope that Illuminare can play a small role in this work that we are all doing together for the greater glory of God!