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Most music, both church and secular, written today ignores the words and uses melodies that are chosen to "tug at the heart strings", composers knowing how certain melodic intervals give a sense of longing, sadness and and joy. And hymnbooks get bigger and bigger rather than better and better. They are becoming "big box stores" of music.

Many strong hymns of the past that teach and reinforce the faith have sadly been dropped from the pages of hymnbooks in favor of hymns that really aren't hymns - but are freely composed and written popular songs with somewhat religious texts. For a while they were in folk music style and now are in Broadway show style - calculated to once again "tug at the heartstrings".

The Catholic Pew Hymnal harks back to older times with some hymns that you know and some that you don't know. And they are old hymns and new hymns, all intended to create the holy marriage of words and music with the music glorifying the words, as it should.

Affordable and small, there is room for it in the hymnal rack on your pews next to larger popular hymnals of today.

If you have a prayer group, they may be passed out as people arrive, or just placed in those pews that you pray together. A homeschool may sing from these for daily hymns as well as meetings of the larger homeschool gatherings.

If you visit parishes as you travel, you could leave one in a pew or hand it to the pastor after Mass as a gift.

This book is part of The Sacred Music Library series of Catholic books and music for Catholic musicians.