Source and Summit Launches New Missal to Elevate Liturgy
Sep 9, 2021

Source and Summit Launches New Missal to Elevate Liturgy

Englewood, CO — Source & Summit is a new Catholic software company that publishes missals, hymnals, and other musical and liturgical resources to help parishes everywhere elevate the liturgy by placing the Mass and authentic liturgical prayer upon what its founders call “the mountaintop of Catholic life.” On August 2, the company announced its official launch.

Through software and online tools, liturgy and music resources, and training programs, Source & Summit, says its founder and CEO, Adam Bartlett, seeks to equip parishes for success as part of the New Evangelization called for by Pope John Paul II, by offering customers both its Missal and a digital platform, both offering the typical components of an annual Catholic missal. In addition, the publication also provides a generous selection of sacred music for parishes to incorporate into their weekly liturgy.

“Every page of the Source & Summit Missal is meticulously designed to help parishes elevate the liturgy, while presenting the standard offerings of a missal, such as the Sunday readings and antiphons, daily Mass propers, and an Order of Mass,” Bartlett said. “The heart of the missal, however, is its immense repertoire of antiphon settings as well as an expansive hymn library above and beyond the familiar hymns of past decades.”

According to Bartlett, the tools which his organization offer to pastors and others will help them respond to current confusion about the purpose and meaning of the liturgy. “Even with all of the right intentions, Mass can often turn into an evangelical, devotional, or catechetical event,” Bartlett said. “Source & Summit recognizes the power of music for both personal devotion and for evangelization. The liturgy, however, transcends these realms and is meant to put Catholics in contact with heaven so as to be poured out as a font into the world to evangelize, disciple, teach, and give witness.”

Bartlett said that Source & Summit was also a response to the flight from the pews occurring in the Church today—especially among the younger generations of Catholics. “Our primary focus today has to be on mission,” he said. “The liturgy is the source and the summit of the Church’s life and mission. That means that we need to celebrate it and participate in it as fully and fruitfully as possible so that we can be as invigorated as possible for the monumental task that lies before us.”

Part of that task, Bartlett noted, is facing the challenges posed by COVID and its aftermath as many pastors, music directors, and parish administrators begin to reevaluate their liturgical practices. “The Church is in a place of great vulnerability in which the status quo will no longer carry us forward,” states Bartlett. “It is also a time for great hope! Right now there is an opportunity for deep and lasting renewal that begins with each of us working together to elevate the liturgy in our parishes and in our lives. This new missal and digital platform are launching points further fueled by the National Eucharistic Revival recently called for by the USCCB.”

While the mission to make the liturgy a daily part of every Catholic’s life is more urgent than ever, Bartlett acknowledged that the task isn’t easy. For that reason, he explained, Source & Summit also offers parishes a series of training programs to help them onboard the publication more easily and more effectively. As part of the launch of the new missal, Source & Summit is offering webinars and training events this fall as a resource to Offices of Worship, pastors, and parish musicians.

“After more than a year of minimal or even in some cases no music at Mass at all,” Bartlett said, “there is a great opportunity for deeper formation and to consider different approaches to parish liturgy and music programs.”

According to Curtis Martin, founder of Fellowship of Catholic University Students (FOCUS), Source & Summit supplies a great demand in the Church today. “In the liturgy, we encounter God in the flesh through all of our senses, and from there, we are enabled to go and make disciples of all nations,” he said. “Source & Summit is helping the Church fulfill its mission by supporting parishes to celebrate the liturgy beautifully and faithfully, especially through music.”

The Source & Summit missal is currently available for pre-order. According to Bartlett, during the month of August, the digital platform will be offered for free for those who take early advantage of the missal “in an effort to help parishes be good stewards of their financial resources during this tumultuous period of recovery.”

For more information about Source & Summit and its resources, visit its website: www.sourceandsummit.com, or call 888-462-7780.

The Editors