It’s not a perfectly good hymn in the liturgy because it is not a Catholic hymn. It has nothing to do with the liturgy. It’s not a Processional Hymn, it’s not about the Offertory, it’s not about the Eucharist and it’s not Recessional. It’s not about Mary, nor Christ the King, nor the Trinity.
YOU may think it’s great, but it’s not Catholic.
I grew up on “Holy God we praise thy name.” The cradle Catholics like the old tunes.
Do you want the congregation to participate?
Why is it not appropriate for a processional? It mentions the opening of the day (appropriate to begin the Mass) as well as praising God for the Creation.
Not holding a brief for that particular hymn, it's not one of my favorites (3/4 time is a bit problematic for hymns generally), nor is Farjeon one of my favorite writers (a little too precious, as you can see if you read her Martin Pippin in the Apple Orchard). My only point was that the criticism of it was not accurate. Now, if the author had said that it wasn't a Catholic hymn, he would have had a point, at least.
But there's so much truly bad stuff to get rid of before we start attacking hymns for mere associations. And I would get rid of the theologically destructive words and hideous trash tunes in the Haugen-Haas-OCP-St. Louis unholy quadrivium, before I started in on merely non-Catholic stuff with tunes I personally don't like.
We have some serious, heavy-duty work to do to renovate Catholic music, and we're going to have to set some priorities if we expect to make any progress.
I'm a cradle Catholic, and I LIKE having new music to sing, as do most of the folks who comment to me about the music that we do. THEY get bored singing the same things over and over, as we in the choir do.
Our Choir Director is a convert, and she takes great care to connect the music we sing to the Scripture readings for the Mass. This is important, because I think that by illuminating the text with music, people remember the Scripture more easily, and that's what we want to happen.