Don’t ask me why I’m standing here on a rainy Saturday morning flipping through Galley’s The Ceremonies of the Eucharist, a book with which I normally have little to do.

In any case, I am, and I stumbled across this little gem in his discussion of the music for the Ordinary of the Mass:

It is sometimes asserted that Episcopal congregations are required to limit their repertory of music for the ordinary to settings included in the official hymnal. Such an assertion fails to take into account the fact that the only part of the hymnal that is set forth by authority is the words. The Episcopal Church does not legislate in the matter of musical settings. Clergy and musicians, working together, are free to make use of the settings in the hymnal (whether of hymns or of the texts of the ordinary) as are appropriate to particular congregations; and to select, compose, or commission such other settings as may be desired. (p. 49)

How interesting…