Logistics of Communion and Choir

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In your parish, what are the logistics for the choir to receive Holy Communion?

Also, does anyone know how the choir and reception of Holy Communion occurred prior to Vatican-II?
 
In my parish, the choir goes first for holy communion, and afterwards, they go back and stand and sing the communion song. It seems to work out because there is maybe a minute of silence before the music starts, but there isn’t enough time for prayer after receiving.

God Bless!
Ericka
 
JMJ_coder said:
In your parish, what are the logistics for the choir to receive Holy Communion?

Also, does anyone know how the choir and reception of Holy Communion occurred prior to Vatican-II?
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In my parish, the choir receives last. The reason this is so is because according to the GIRM, at least my pastor’s interpretation of it, the Communion hymn begins when the celebrant communicates.

However, when I was in Catholic school, the choirmaster would divide the choir. Half would go to receive Holy Communion and then when they returned, the other half would go to receive.

What I used to do at my old parish was to bring Holy Communion to the organist whenever it was my turn to serve as EMHC. He was the only one singing and playing so, logistically, he couldn’t leave the choir loft and then come back up.

I do not know the answer to your second question.
 
JMJ_coder said:
In your parish, what are the logistics for the choir to receive Holy Communion?

Also, does anyone know how the choir and reception of Holy Communion occurred prior to Vatican-II?
Click to expand...
At one parish that I go to (I suspect this is totally against the rubrics) the cantor and the organist receive with the EMHCs, and then the choir processes forward with the congregation. They don’t sing from the choir loft; they sing from a section of the congregation. The cantor leads the communion hymn.

At the other, the choir loft is, in fact, in use, and there is a period of silence while the choir receives Holy Communion - they come down from the choir loft and receive first, and then the rest of the congregation goes forward as normal.
 
Our choir receives prior to the rest of the congregation.

This wasn’t always the case but when the decision was made to have those in the back rows of the Church receive communion first and those in the front rows last it made sense for the choir to receive early. This does mean that we must wait until after we are done singing for private prayer.
 
Our choir receives after everyone else which means that there is no singing while they receive.

It’s too bad they opt for this because their location in the church (right front) would allow them to take turns receiving making it possible to sing throughout the procession (and actually finish a hymn). It wouldn’t affect much since they are a unison choir (I think that’s the term, no harmony?) and if they had the strongest voices receive first and last they could keep the singing going longer. All it would require is the request from parishioners to allow a choir member to cut in the Communion line. We did this during a Triduum a few years ago when we had to throw a choir together or not have any singing at all. We went to Communion 2 at a time and the singing continued until everyone had received.

Unfortunately people seem to think that if the organ goes silent the singing must stop.
 
In my parish, we sing the first hymn, then there is silence while we join the line for Communion, then we return to the choir area and sing 2-3 more hymns.

We have a large parish. 😃
 
It used to be the practice that the choir would receive first and then go back to their places. However, the director came out with a bad idea of having a couple choir members act as extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion in order to bring communion to us while we’re singing the Communion song!

You would be singing with your choir book and then you would have to put it down and stop singing in order to receive communion. It was a lot easier the old way, plus it gave me time to pray and reflect and not worry about what I had to sing while I was receiving communion.
 
In our church the choir receive last - the priest or deacon will give a large pyx to one of the EMHC’s who take it up to the loft and they receive after they finish singing.

The EMHC will consume any left over Hosts and remain in the loft until Mass is over. Then he/she returns the pyx to the sacrist.

Seems to work out well.

David
 
We go first. It is simply not practical to go last, as seldom does any song end simultaneous with the tail end of the communion line. On rare occassions, like First Communions, we will have to go last and it is inevitably a train wreck as we try to find a stopping point at the right time. When doing this myself, I have been completely skipped at Communion.
 
In our parish, the cantor and organist receive first, then lead the hymn while the choir receives Communion. As the choir files back into the risers, they join in.
 
The music director leads a congregationally sung song while the choir goes to Communion before the congregation. After the congregational song, the choir sings. Once everyone has had Communion and the choir finishes, the music director takes Communion. Doesn’t work well as the Deacon is usally waiting for the choir to finish singing so the music director can take Communion.
 
ericka1701 said:
In my parish, the choir goes first for holy communion, and afterwards, they go back and stand and sing the communion song. It seems to work out because there is maybe a minute of silence before the music starts, but there isn’t enough time for prayer after receiving.

God Bless!
Ericka
Click to expand...
This is the way it was done in my old parish, which actually had a choir loft. It worked much better than my current parish’s method of having the choir receive last.

There is a natural pause when preparing for communion, EMHC’s are coming forward; this is the ideal time for the choir to receive–first–then go back to begin the communion song.

The way we do it now, there is always an awkward period after the entire congregation has received, while we all wait for the choir to receive.
 
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