Speaking of flexibility, creativity and profit:
Jeffrey Tucker looks ahead a bit and asks what your parish is doing for the Introit for Gaudete Sunday. Since, of course, the whole reason it’s called “Gaudete Sunday” is because of the Introit:
Gaudete in Domino semper: iterum dico, gaudete: modestia vestra nota sit omnibus hominibus: Dominus prope est. Nihil solliciti sitis: sed in omni oratione petitiones vestrae innotescant apud Deum.
Ps. Benedixisti, Domine, terram tuam: avertisti captivitatem Iacob.
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice. Let your gentleness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand. Have no anxiety about anything, but in everything by prayer let your petitions be made known to God
Which, of course is an important, organic key that the near-universal choice for the “or other suitable songs” option renders invisible.
Jeffrey offers files of a few versions of this – in both Latin and English – and then points out:
Singing any of them means that the propers are covered, and you have affirmed and marked the day of the liturgical year. You can note the decline in complexity from top to bottom but there is no sense in decrying it. They are all suitable, and the last option is actually very dignified and permits people to join in the singing.
Now, all the sources mentioned above are free. I’m now looking at a stack of expensive missalletes and affiliated choral resources from mainline Catholic publishers–materials paid for out of parishioner’s pockets. Not one of them provides any option for singing the propers on this day. You can always pick a hymn, I guess, with the word “rejoice” in it somewhere (“Rejoice the Lord is King”) but are we really doing what we ought in this case?