Q: Hello Paul, I hope you are well. We are very pleased that you are coming to Australia (Sydney) next year. See you then!
Our parish include the communion minister and lectors in the entrance procession under the ‘other ministers’ ref in the GIRM. Should these ‘minister’ process out with the celebrant?
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A: Thanks, I very much look forward to seeing you again on my return Down Under. I’ll post details on my talks in Australia on my web site, as they become known.
Customarily the “other ministers” in the entrance procession include additional servers, but not extra lectors or communion ministers. However, I admit that the term is vague, so you can make a case for including them.
They aren’t mentioned at the recession, which, as I’ve pointed out elsewhere, doesn’t have the same importance as the procession at the beginning.
You probably could include them on the strength of the argument that extra servers who walk in surely would also walk out, but I think it’s better not to include communion ministers and all lectors in either procession. It keeps things a little cleaner. And, after all, someone carries the Book of the Gospels in, but not out.