The trouble with Communion Processionals

[Nick Baty]

I have to hold up my hands and admit it: I cannot get Communion songs to work.

Our assembly can manage: Eat this bread – Taizé; Like as the deer – Tamié; Jesus, remember me – Taizé; Where is love – Rees; and that’s about it, apart from one or two homemade psalms.

So we’ve started falling back on occasional choir items, organ music or (as we’re doing this Lent) silence although it’s tricky creating silence on a Sunday morning with lots of little people around!

I look with envy at music lists from places like Salford Cathedral which has a mightily impressive repertoire of Communion songs.

So I’m just wondering what other people do.
What works for you?
Or you have you, too, given up?

[NorthernTenor]

The communion chant from either the Graduale Romanum or Adam Bartlett's English Propers project.

[HallamPhil]

Bob Hurd's got a few very useful items in various collections. You might want to have a look at Holy is the Temple and some of the seasonal collections. Also worth a look are some of Chris Walker's recent offerings in the Come, receive Christ collection. They all use the refrain-verse structure which enables the refrain to be repeated until folk are comfortable/familiar with it to use in procession with the verses.

[Nick Baty]

Thanks for that, Phil.
Perhaps I need to look around more.
It's important that there aren't too many words to remember and that the melody doesn't leap about, and lowish in pitch – noone's going to leap for a high note while processing.

[Southern Comfort]

Farrell: Bread of life, hope for the world and Unless a grain
Countless Psallite antiphons and psalms (Songs for the Table)
Stephen Dean Taste and see (and I also use a version with a simple chant for the verses)
Tony Barr: Taste and see
James Moore: Taste and see
Stephen Dean: Lord, your love has drawn us near

I also use I received the living God during the Communion procession rather than afterwards.

All the above, plus the ones others have mentioned, work well for me.

[Nick Baty]

The two Farrell pieces go down very well in the parish and are well-loved. But I can't see them working well in procession – there is a rather a lot to remember! However, perhaps I'm underestimating our good people.
When I was writing the first post, I was listening to the three Psallite albums now available on Spotify. Yes, I think these could go down well.
Thanks, SC.

[Nick Baty]

Just mulling on my original posting, I'm wondering if the problem is simply the size of our assembly.

I've never really had problems with communion songs in larger churches because, at any one moment, there are people processing, people returning to their seats and people who haven't yet left them.

In our small church we rarely number more than 80 and that means that, apart from those who aren't so good on their feet, everyone is up and moving at the same time. I wonder if that could be the reason!

[HallamPhil]

I neglected to mention the Augustinian text @O Sacrament of love' set by Philip Jakob ... an unacclaimed work of genius!!

[alan29]

Our place has always (20 years at least) organised communion along CofE lines where people go up in order, starting from the front. That way there are always enough people left in the seats with books to continue the singing. I was amazed to see it when I moved into the parish ..... but it works extremely well.
When numbers are small at funerals etc, I doodle the communion song from the start of communion (just you try to stop me ) until enough people are back to sing, then it becomes more of a post communion thing.

[Nick Baty]

As is Mr Jakob himself!

[gwyn]

Could it be that after all the incessant yabbering, V/'ing and R/'ing as well as the hand-shaking and greeting, there comes a point when many in the congregation simply want to shut up and drink in the still, small voice rather than to endure more imposed singing?

Just a thought.

[Nick Baty]

I think that's a very valid thought, Mr Gwyn.
A well-chosen piece, properly executed, can lead to a prayerful procession, rather than a queue.
I need to look at my own methodology.

[quaeritor]

I have to hold up my hands and admit it: I cannot get Communion songs to work.

How I do sympathise! - I've tried everything (well, of course not everything, but quite a lot) - and they just won't sing (well, even that's not wholly true - there is this form of singing which I have only encountered in Catholic churches in which a large proportion of the congregation would claim to be singing, but in fact it is only in a way which cannot be heard even by the person standing (or processing) directly in front of them).
I have taken to singing a setting of the Communion Antiphon when the bell rings - it's a nice opportunity to give he choir a small-scale challenge week by week (and me to provide the setting!) - and then we all go off to receive Holy Communion, after which we sing a post-Communion hymn - but since the PP likes to announce the purpose of the second collection .it has to be more of a "half way through communion" hymn - not a perfect solution I guess
Does anybody achieve a real processional?

Q

[Nick Baty]

I've tried everything... and they just won't sing

Perhaps we're judging the result simply from the volume.
I've often seen lips moving in time with the music even though there's not much sound coming out!
Perhaps we shouldn't seek anything more.

[NorthernTenor]

Could it be that after all the incessant yabbering, V/'ing and R/'ing as well as the hand-shaking and greeting, there comes a point when many in the congregation simply want to shut up and drink in the still, small voice rather than to endure more imposed singing?

Just a thought.

An acute observation, Gwyn. Maybe we should stop trying to bash our heads against a brick wall, and listen to what congregations are telling us: they're tired of being jollied into singing so much. Perhaps what began in the 19th century as an admirable initiative to improve the piety with which the faithful attend mass has become a movement of hectoring busy-bodies, whose well-meaning attempts to have everyone sing as much of the liturgy as possible are simply screened out by the majority of Catholics. Sensus fidelium, anyone?