This is just weird! Does your pastor know about this?

True, frogman. The pastor knows and is against him putting Christ down. But this person who asked always asks for good reasons and saying "it's not reverent" won't be enough. That's why I want documentation.

I would venture only grave necessity (tending to someone who is is having a seizure, for example) would justify such a practice. Certainly nothing chronic of this sort: once you are ministering holy communion, that is the only thing you should be doing until you are done with it. If that means not singing, it means not singing.

"But this person who asked always asks for good reasons and saying "it's not reverent" won't be enough."

What about "it's very irreverent"? Would that work?

Surely the following would suffice:

1) Our Lord may never be left in the Monstrance alone, that is, without at least one adorer.
2) All opportunity toward profanation is to be avoided.
3) Who is adoring Our Lord on the Organ?
4) NOTHING should ever encourage an attitude of casual-ness in the Liturgy, or toward the Blessed Sacrament.

God bless,

Chris

well, congrats! we all seem to have a consensus that God shouldnt be treated like hors d'voures in the choir loft!

hell in a handbasket is right... the church has come to a very low point.

bravo to you all for keeping proper decorum toward our king.

The documents of the Church, as a general rule, are proscriptive, rather than restrictive.

Basically this means that they tell you the correct way to do things, or give you a couple of choices regarding how do to something. What they DON'T do is try to imagine every crazy thing that someone might do and then specifically outlaw each of those things.

Or another way, they tell you what you should do, rather than what you shouldn't do.

Say the black, do the red.

We have the minister come up to the choir loft. We are all getting too old, and those stairs are really steep, steep, steep to get up to the loft.

what part does jesus usually sing?

There must be some sort of rubrics/norms "Guidelines for Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion" or, "Guidelines for bringing Holy Communion to the sick" or something, that could provide a starting point!

Not a fan of the distribution of communion after Mass. It's valid, but there's no good reason the congregation cannot wait for the rest of its members (the choir) to receive. The postwar American Catholic Prime Directive of "Thou Shalt Not Do Anything That Unnecessarily Prolongs Mass" is not a good reason.

There is no reason for singing to fill the time of communion.

If the choir can sing the communion chant without the organ, the organist goes to communion.

After some silence, the organist may play. After some more silence the entire congregation and priest may join together in a hymn AFTER communion, as the current church documents recommend.

My advice is to adopt the following practice:

1.) Keep a group of about 5 or 6 to sing the communion chant.
2.) Send the rest of the choir (and the organist) to recieve communion.
3.) When this group has all returned, start a communion hymn
4.) Send the chant group for communion.

Another option:

1.) Keep the choir in the loft and commence the communion chant.
2.) Send the organist down for communion.
3.) When about 80% of the congregation have recieved communion, send the choir.
4.) Get the organist to play an appropriate interlude.

One of my personal favourites is an interlude on "Picardy" from the Oxford book of service music for organ. I lengthen it by first playing through the hymn tune picardy onec through, and then improvise for as much as I need. I have used this same piece as an offertory interlude aswell on days when I might only have a cantor or be running the whole show from the organ bench on my own. I usually print the antiphon for the Communion chant in the mass leaflet and a few people try to join in after a few verses.

OTOH, ostensibly SATB choirs are themselves often replete with a number of baritones forced to sing either tenor or bass (or worse, to hop back and forth) and, correspondingly for women's voices, chock full of mezzos forced to choose (if possible) between soprano and alto (or voice-hop between the two).

With enough voices available, it makes sense to perform SMzATBarB music (usually designated SSATBB or SSATTB) whenever possible, say when you can have 2 or 3 (or more) on each of the 6 parts. It makes it much better on the true mezzos and baritones. And it is generally more suited to the medium sized choir than SATB divisi (SSAATTBB) scoring. CPDL currently lists 54 SSATBB sacred choral works (one of them is my "Ave verum corpus") and 170 SSATTB sacred choral works.

With enough voices available, it makes sense to perform SMzATBarB music

I'm sorry, but I don't listen to hip-hop.

My choir has several people who are now in their eighties. The choir room is in the basement. The choir loft is 20 feet above the main floor. I found some folks get too winded with all those stairs. We have a designated minister who takes communion to the section of the church where the handicapped sit, then comes on up to the choir. It works well for us.