I gotta be more careful about picking Sundays for singing.

I met with the organist last night to practice and set the music for the next four Sundays.  We found acceptable appropriate hymns for the first three Sundays, and then opened the hymnal to see what we had for the fourth, which, as it turns out, is Corpus Christi.

It was horrible.  I had somehow forgotten just how bad the communion hymns are in CBWIII, perhaps because I always pick communion hymns from outside that book.  But here I was, stuck with trying to find some music for communal singing out of that dreadful book.  I would have liked to have just given out some handouts for the day, but we were already doing that for Trinity Sunday (Holy Holy Holy- for some unfathomable reason it was excluded from CBW III) and we can't push it.  I am faced with the realization that Gift of Finest Wheat may be the best the book has to offer.

In all sincerity, the only good thing I can say about CBWIII is that it is slightly better than some other hymnals out there, although their names escape me, and it will most likely be much better than whatever the bishops create to replace it. True story: about a year ago the bishops sent out a survey to people involved in parish music programs, asking what they would like to see in a new hymnal. My response was, in short: "No need for a new hymnal: the old one is bad enough."  My wife's tart response could be summed up as "How about this time not having it edited by a gay paedophile?"