Does your parish sing the ENTIRE recessional (closing) hymn?

  • Thread starter Thread starter CatholicZ09
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
C

CatholicZ09

Guest
I have never sung an entire recessional hymn in a long time unless Father decides to wait at the sanctuary for the majority of the recessional hymn (my old pastor liked doing this ;)) and then process out. The hymn ends when those, who participated in a special role during the Mass (readers, servers, the priest, etc.), reach the back of the church. Is there anyone out there that actually goes to a parish where the entire recessional hymn is sung?
 
XD YES!

We have a musical director that really loves his job, he’d go on for an hour if the priest would let him. Sometimes, its a little annoying when the priest has processed out two verses ago and we’re still singing, but I don’t particularly mind all that much. The music is very beautiful and I enjoy singing. However, I wouldn’t hold it against anyone if they left after the priest processed out, especially since our musical director goes on so long.
 
Depends on the song. Some hymns have 15 verses! 🙂 Usually we sing 3 -1 for the priest to get organzied, altar boy to get the cross etc, 1 for them to recess, and 1 more for good measure!.
 
CatholicZ09 said:
I have never sung an entire recessional hymn in a long time unless Father decides to wait at the sanctuary for the majority of the recessional hymn (my old pastor liked doing this ;)) and then process out. The hymn ends when those, who participated in a special role during the Mass (readers, servers, the priest, etc.), reach the back of the church. Is there anyone out there that actually goes to a parish where the entire recessional hymn is sung?
Click to expand...
My family and I used to belong to a (seemingly) devote Catholic Church. When anyone arrived before Mass they automatically joined (on their knees) the Rosary. Praise God!

At the end of Mass when verses were being sung by the choir…my family and I were the last ones standing in all the Church still singing. Everone left as soon as the priest passed their pew.

I think as long as the Choir is singing we as a people need to sing. To believe the Mass is over as soon as the priest leave is not true…the Mass sends us forth until we meet again.

“Go in peace to love and serve the world” does not end when the priest exists!
 
jmjconder said:
I think as long as the Choir is singing we as a people need to sing. To believe the Mass is over as soon as the priest leave is not true…the Mass sends us forth until we meet again.

“Go in peace to love and serve the world” does not end when the priest exists!
Click to expand...
(Above emphasis mine). Your assertion is pious, but inaccurate. Mass is over when the priest says or chants, “Ite, missa est” or “Go, the Mass is ended.” It is a matter of good manners and respect to wait until the celebrant has processed out of the sanctuary and down the nave (or exits to a side sacristy),
 
Our priest says Mass ends with the words of the Dismissal. He explains singing a hymn at this point is unnecessary and incorrect. We never have a recessional hymn in our parish. He and the servers also return to the sacristy by the shortest route. Their departure is covered by a voluntary on the organ.
 
And there is no such thing as a recessional hymn in the Roman Gradual. The Mass ends with the dismissal. At our abbey the organist plays the organ as the monks exit in procession after the Mass. All wait until the last monk has left to leave the church. Some stay until the organist stops playing, but it is not necessary to do so.
 
Well, those of us who stay until it’s done, sing the whole song, so maybe 1/4 of the people at Mass. The rest flee as quickly as possible…have to be the first out of the parking lot:rolleyes:
 
This is the hymn for the recessional process. Consequently the celebrant and the servers leave the altar after the first stance. In the Church where I am home almost everybody stands in the pew singing all the stanzas.
 
The Mass is ended when the priest says it is (“The Mass is ended, go in peace.”) We have a shallow Church architecturaly. It usually doesn’t even take a whole verse for the priest to recess with the servers even though he pauses for a good while to pray at the foot of the altar. Our family always stays and sings until the end of the first verse or until the priest has completed his recession, whichever comes last. If I really like the song, I will stay and sing more verses.
 
I am thankful that the choir is there and singing in a Catholic Church! For that reason alone, I stay to watch (and sing).
 
CatholicZ09 said:
I have never sung an entire recessional hymn in a long time unless Father decides to wait at the sanctuary for the majority of the recessional hymn (my old pastor liked doing this ;)) and then process out. The hymn ends when those, who participated in a special role during the Mass (readers, servers, the priest, etc.), reach the back of the church. Is there anyone out there that actually goes to a parish where the entire recessional hymn is sung?
Click to expand...
Hi Catholic,

We don’t, and I find it very annoying. There have been instances where only one verse has been actually sung, which is quite tacky and implies that music is no more than a painful duty. That has not been done for some years, which is good, but we still frequently only do two verses. I don’t mind cutting a bit much of the time, but I would like to see at least three for good form.

One should never cut off a hymn with a logical progression of thought. A big example is a hymn in praise of the Trinity. Cutting the verse that gives adoration to the Holy Spirit just because we’ve done our “obligatory two” is in extremely poor form.

God Bless,
Joan
 
Our priest is pretty quick. Sometimes we’ll only do 2 depending on the song.
 
Our parish sings the entire song, all verses. Yes, it seems rude when people leave before the singing ends, but on the other hand, sometimes the music for the entire mass has taken up so much time that mass becomes an hour and a half instead of an hour. It’s a bit much…especially if you have little children.
 
Yes and no. Our pastor has admonished the people to remain in their pews for the duration of the recessional, not to “turn their backs” on the choir and barrel out the doors as soon as they can. However, our recessional hymn is always shortened to two verses. We do two verses of entrance hymn, too, if we can get away with it. Sometimes there are more, as “filler” for times when incense is used to bless the altar. Unfortunately, that is the general opinion of music and congregational singing in my parish, that it is “filler” for some other liturgical action going on, and not a liturgical action in itself.
 
OraLabora said:
Some stay until the organist stops playing, but it is not necessary to do so.
Click to expand...
I usually stay for the entire postlude as well. Most don’t bother to stay or talk through it, ignoring the organist.
 
Well as a convert from an evangelical church I was surprised and even a little shocked when people started leaving the church while the hymn was still being sung. I love to sing and still will stay as long as I can hold off the surge. It took me a lomg while to gert used to people leaving early. It still seems a little disrespectful.
 
It seems to depend more on the pianist than anything else…Sometimes it is one verse, sometimes 2 but never more than 2, and after they pause and we clap, he starts another song as if to practice or just do his own thing. Then we leave.

I noticed that Episcopalians tend to sing ALL the verses of every song they sing.
 
Occasionally, but much of the time it’s only the first, second, and last verses. That’s at my home parish, where we have a full musical program that’s a little too contemporary for my tastes. It’s still pretty reverent, I just prefer the older stuff.

There is a parish which does a Mass in Latin, what used to be called the Low Mass. The hymns sung by the congregation are all pre 1965 hymns, in English, all the old ones we people of a certain age (ahem) remember from our Catholic school days. I go there once in a blue moon on a Sunday, and most of us would be belting out half the hymnal for the rest of the afternoon if we thought we could get away with it and Father didn’t want to get back to the rectory for lunch!

Another church I occasionally go to on Sundays does not have an organist, or anyone who plays even a guitar. It is a parish of a religious order, and a priest recently joined the other priests there. He seems to have decided that we should be singing those old hymns, a capella. Prior to his coming to this parish, none of the other priests “made” us sing. They exited via the sacristy, after the dismissal.

Some of the congregation there are totally lost without accompaniment. And this particular priest has a glare that would curdle milk if anyone tried to weasel out of church before he was done singing! So we muddle (and I do mean muddle, we sound like a convention of angry frogs!) through the entire hymn he has selected for the day, and stay put till it’s over. Or else!
 
Yup. In both parishes I’ve been to we sing the whole way through. I always stay right until the end, I don’t understand why people are so eager to rush off. Another few minutes won’t kill you!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top