Deacon Martin Casey has produced a new resource to tie in with the new edition Lectionary, encouraging the singing of the psalms.

He explains: “The psalms are meant to be sung! While some parishes are blessed with accomplished choirs and regularly sing the psalm at Sunday Mass, many are not. 

“Speaking to clergy and parishioners in parishes that do not regularly sing the psalms, there were two common problems: A lack of a confident cantor, and a lack of time to prepare and rehearse. 

“The intention with this project, coinciding with the new Lectionary in Advent 2024, is to alleviate these two problems, and allow the singing of the Psalm at Holy Mass every Sunday in every church.”

As a result, Deacon Martin, who serves at St Dunstan’s in Kings Heath and St Jude’s in Maypole and is a full-time teacher at Archbishop Ilsley Catholic School in Birmingham, has produced fully annotated psalm sheets, set to a simple and easy-to-sing tone, for every possible Sunday Mass across the full three-year cycle. Two alternative tones are also provided to allow variation once parishes are comfortable with the simplest tone.

This resource is provided online and free of charge to every parish that wishes to use it, and is suitably licensed in England and Wales, and in Scotland. Pages can be accessed and downloaded, copied and used at will. A limited print-run of physical copies has also been produced, with a donation requested to cover printing and postage costs. Information can be found on the same webpage under ‘Physical Resource’. 

Access Psalm Sheets resource

Deacon Martin is happy to provide further assistance and can be contacted via email [email protected] 

New edition Lectionary