MERGED: Can people be involved in other ministries during Mass?

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chickenhawk1022

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I am hoping to garner a few responses to this question so I can gauge what if anything is the ‘norm’ across different parishes.

Do you have members of your choir leave the choir area to participate in other ministries in the same Mass? I don’t mean cantors, but just chorus members moving out into the church to serve as a reader, or as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion?

My parish is the only parish I’ve seen this happen in and I was just curious to know if this is common?

Thanks in advance for any responses.
 
In my parish the choir is up in the choir loft and that’s where they stay for the duration of the Mass.
 
Our choir is in the loft at the rear of the church. So that the choir can sing the communion hymn, we take communion to them. Often, we cannot schedule or find sufficient EMHCs. So we tap someone in the choir to come down, and be the EMHC for the choir. But only for the choir. By the way, the choir director doesn’t like this one bit.

We do have one tenor who is also a cantor and also a reader. When he’s the only of two tenors, the choir director really wants him to stay in the loft for as much time as possible. But when he’s scheduled to read, he comes down to read, then makes his way back up to the loft. You wouldn’t notice him doing this–he is very very discreet and subtle–unless you know him and are looking up at the loft and see him there at the beginning of Mass.
 
I would cantor, then a few weeks later, be a reader, then a few weeks later cantor. I felt people were looking at me as “showboat” so I stopped being a reader. Nothing was directly said about it, I just felt self conscious.

I used to be a Protestant minister and was quite used to being active in the church services.
 
**I was told in a former parish that volunteers (unless absolutely needed) should not be in two ministries in the same Liturgy (Reader/Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion/Cantor).

I am attending a parish that seems to offer the Liturgy to the letter…other than this one point.

There are people waiting to volunteer at the Liturgy at this parish because of the reverence to the Holy Mass. However this is one item that I do not agree with.

Is there anything in Church documents that would discourage the same person from partaking in two different volunteer positions at Mass? Thought there was.**
 
At our choir mass one of the choir members who is also an EM goes down from the loft to receive a ciboria from the priest and brings communion to the choir members only. It is easier than having an assigned EMHC go up there and then come down and distribute to the assembly.
 
To the best of my knowledge there is no official universal ruling that lay people who fill a liturgical role should have one role only per Mass. I imagine there are plenty of dioceses and/or parishes that do have such rules.

I would imagine that the idea (and I believe it is fairly prevalent) that one should stick to a single role is because there are customarily separate roles for the ordained should there be multiple bishops, priests, and/or deacons.

I know that multiple roles are discouraged in my parish. In general, I think it is discouraged that a particular lay person person should be trained to handle multiple roles even at different Masses. The exception is that it is very common for choir members to serve as EMHCs or lectors (but never both) at the same Mass where they sing.
 
chickenhawk1022 said:
I am hoping to garner a few responses to this question so I can gauge what if anything is the ‘norm’ across different parishes.

Do you have members of your choir leave the choir area to participate in other ministries in the same Mass? I don’t mean cantors, but just chorus members moving out into the church to serve as a reader, or as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion?

My parish is the only parish I’ve seen this happen in and I was just curious to know if this is common?

Thanks in advance for any responses.
Click to expand...
No. Never.
 
We do have choir members who serve as readers and EMHCs at the same Mass at which the choir sings.

Our church is built in kind of a modified antiphonal seating style where the “sanctuary” is a raised platform for the altar in the center aisle. The choir is at the back end of the center aisle and the ambo is between the altar and the choir.

As such, it is just as easy for a choir member to reach the ambo or altar it is for any other lay person. I think our choir director originally preferred that choir members not serve as EMHCs (since it means they can’t sing the communion hymn) but we have a large choir so a few voices are not missed. In fact the choir usually receives while the communion hymn is being sung. (We sing while in line.)
 
I am in the choir, and have also been put on the roster for reader, commentator and EHMC, often at the same Mass. This has all happened fairly recently, and I am wondering what to do about it.

I’ll be reading this thread over the next few days to see the opinions on this issue.

Some of the responses do not apply to my situation, as the choir is situated near the front and it is physically possible for a choir member to “double-up” in most roles, except for EHMC at communion time.
 
Here, the choir sits in the first 3 pews. It’s common to have a choir member come up to serve as lector. Sometimes they’re up to serve as EMHCs.

Joe
 
creationlover said:
I would cantor, then a few weeks later, be a reader, then a few weeks later cantor. I felt people were looking at me as “showboat” so I stopped being a reader. Nothing was directly said about it, I just felt self conscious.

I used to be a Protestant minister and was quite used to being active in the church services.
Click to expand...
I am also a cantor and a reader - but obviously never at the same Mass and to date, rarely even at the same time Mass - so I may read at the 9am one week and cantor at the 11am a couple of weeks later. I have felt those same self conscious feelings though - worried that the priest if nobody else will get sick of seeing me - so I completely understand.

Thanks to all for the responses. We have a new Director of Music and Liturgy and having choir members move out of the choir area to read or serve communion bothers her and she’s given the instruction (with our pastor’s support) that it should stop. Having her choir members leave to do another job has to be annoying - and also from a liturgist’s perspective she has to consider it ‘wrong’. I can understand this, and I do support the ‘one ministry per Mass’ rule.

I’m kind of shocked at the dissension this has caused among choir members though - some of the complaints and comments I heard today made me so sad - I pray that they have a change of heart and come around to understand where our director is coming from.
 
Edmundus1581 said:
I am in the choir, and have also been put on the roster for reader, commentator and EHMC, often at the same Mass. This has all happened fairly recently, and I am wondering what to do about it.

I’ll be reading this thread over the next few days to see the opinions on this issue.

Some of the responses do not apply to my situation, as the choir is situated near the front and it is physically possible for a choir member to “double-up” in most roles, except for EHMC at communion time.
Click to expand...
Part of our issue in our parish is that we have a relatively small number of people who are involved in many ministries - so it is the case that over a few week period parishioners could see the same person involved in multiple ministries. The concern is that this can seem cliquish - and either intimidate others sharing their time and talents, or give them an excuse not to become involved since they see that the various ministries are all taken care of by the same people and they make the assumption that new people are not needed.

Maybe I should post another thread on how you all encourage wider parishioner participation in the parish ministries 😃 I think some of our choir ladies started, or continued to serve in additional ministries because there were probably times when there weren’t enough other people to do it - and then it kind of became the norm?

Edited to add - we have never had a cantor or reader participate in other ministries at the same Mass - this recent issue only relates to the non-cantor choir members singing in the choir and then serving in another capacity.
 
Chickenhawk, your description of how this arises would apply exactly to my parish. The simple problem is that few people volunteer for the various roles, so those who do get rostered on quite frequently, and then, once it has started happening, it becomes the “norm”. This then leads to the problem of it appearing “cliquish”, but how to get more people to volunteer is a separate issue. Our parish regularly calls for more volunteers.

There is still, for myself, the problem of what to do about it now that I am also in the choir. I thank you for raising the question.
 
I posted a similar question earlier this evening - I’m sorry I didn’t see this one first. We are facing some issues with this very topic. In our case it is the Director of Liturgy’s preference that choir members do NOT serve in other ministries in the same Mass.

My understanding, even prior to our recent issue is that the various liturgical roles should be carried out by a variety of lay people to avoid the appearance that we have ‘stars’ or individuals who then become the focus of attention by virtue of the fact that they appear to be doing everything - than on the liturgy itself.

I have read this on several church websites where they publish guidelines for participation in liturgical ministries - and it makes sense to me - but I have not read it on any official documentation. Our own diocese website has nothing to this effect.
 
chickenhawk1022 said:
I am hoping to garner a few responses to this question so I can gauge what if anything is the ‘norm’ across different parishes.

Do you have members of your choir leave the choir area to participate in other ministries in the same Mass? I don’t mean cantors, but just chorus members moving out into the church to serve as a reader, or as an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion?

My parish is the only parish I’ve seen this happen in and I was just curious to know if this is common?

Thanks in advance for any responses.
Click to expand...
Your parish is not alone. Five of our choir members are readers and thee of them are EMHCs. One is both. More often than not we have one or more members of the choir leave the choir area to perform another ministry as we have fewer and fewer members volunteering to be readers and EMHCs. In fact, the last pastor decided to only have one reader at most Saturday evening Masses. Because there is no choir or singing at that Mass, said readers read both readings, the Psalm and the Intercessions.
 
Uh well I am lol. I am an extra-ordinary minister of Holy communion. And I choir member at the same mass. And sometimes I play the trumpet, sing, and distribute communion at the same mass.

The only reason I do this is because the vocation director told me that I needed to get more involved at mass. And I use to be very shy, so I started with Choir. Then I eased up to EHMC.

If I weren’t discerning the priesthood, I would not be an EMHC.
 
From what I can find the GIRM does not forbid a person from performing multiple mimnistries during a single MASS. However it does say that if there there are several people present that can preform the ministry then they should be done by seperate people.
 
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