Communion in the Choir Loft
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    Permitted or not....loft way in the back of the church, up two flights of stairs or by slow elevator...

    I'm not sure where to look this one up so I am hoping someone may have an answer. And thanks, as always.
  • G
    Posts: 1,401
    We receive in the loft. 2 1/2 flights up. Very awkward.
    Usually one ExMin who has been sitting in the nave brings up both species and after administering them to an ExMin who is a member of the choir, hands one species off to the latter, and the choir files off their risers, tries to find places to kneel in some cases, (our kneelers were taken away,) trips over other people's music, mills around to clear a path to choir members who have too much trouble with the stairs, try to determine through hand signals and eyebrow signals if I who am at the console am going to receive, try to find someone to finish the Precious Blood if the estimates have been wrong, etc.
    Not that I have a problem with any of this, or anything....

    (Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,611
    Wow, G....you have outlined exactly how it is going to work here...something else to think of when I can't sleep.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,985
    One of the extraordinary ministers - we have three in the choir - goes down front and brings communion back up the stairs to the choir. Reception of bread alone is the norm in my church. I play while the choir receives, since I rarely receive while I am working. I have choir members in their 80s, so negotiating the stairs multiple times is out of the question. It actually seems to work better than some years ago when the choir processed down the stairs to the front, then back again.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,220
    While it would be ideal for members of the choir to receive the Holy Eucharist during the Mass, some priests kindly offer to give the sacrament a few minutes afterward, and it's a work of mercy.
  • Joseph Mansfield
    Posts: 113
    Permitted? Dunno. I have never found a regulation on it. There is no good solution. Whatever is done, the Precious Blood should never be carried to the loft. Danger of a spill increases by an order of magnitude.
  • G
    Posts: 1,401
    "the Precious Blood should never be carried to the loft"

    It is always offered at our parish.

    (Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
  • soli
    Posts: 95
    We are up a long flight of stairs in the loft. We go down. Before Communion sometime I look down at the people to find a "marker" - certain jacket colours, for example towards the back rows - which will indicate when we should conclude the music and go down for Communion, so that there will be a time of sacred silence, but not too long. I have gauged the time wrong before and we were too early, but you can even have someone else do the same thing for you and give an indication. I am the organist, so if we are not singing unaccompanied polyphony, it is difficult for me to see (hence the "marker"). We prefer to go down since our members are in their 40s and down (one a little older, but still well). We have one person who has been ill and an EMHC has come up before to bring Communion to him.
  • OlbashOlbash
    Posts: 314
    If I ever work in an RC parish again, here is what I would propose:

    Choir sings communion antiphon with enough verses to last through 50% of communion procession. Then, they leave (with their coats and belongings, if they wish) and I play. No "meditation" and no "recessional hymn" -- neither exist in the rite. As for me, well, it's a good idea for *all* of us organists to attend Mass frequently at times when we are *not* playing/singing/conducting.
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