Receiving Holy Communion

In August, the Church of England offered guidance on the celebration of Holy Communion. The theological reflection attached to it opens with the observation, "God’s presence is always with us, in ways that often escape explanation" (cf. my post on God's Real Presence).

The guidance rightly notes: "The dominical sacraments, as the Church of England has understood them, both signify and convey the realities to which they refer." Although it should be pointed out that according to our formularies the realities are truly offered but not necessarily received. This is so because what is supremely offered in the Eucharist cannot be received with hand and mouth but must be received by faith. Unbelievers who receive the elements have the body and blood of Christ truly offered to them but they do not receive the body and blood of Christ. The doctrine of transubstantiation, as commonly understood, is erroneous in suggesting that the true substance of the Eucharist is received by material means. 

We recognise that the present circumstances have raised in a new way many questions about the celebration of Holy Communion in the Church of England. It is our hope that the Faith and Order Commission and the Liturgical Commission will be able to give more extended theological consideration to these than is possible within the constraints of this short guidance document. While God’s people are seeking to discern how to live as a eucharistic community under the current restrictions, we believe that there is much we can learn from the present situation about the celebration of Holy Communion at any time. We encourage deep reflection on our practices, as all members of the Church seek to respond to changing circumstances and the spiritual needs that emerge from them.

I have found this to be true. The present circumstances have encouraged me to reflect more deeply on our practices, raising questions and clarifying some matters in the process. It has clarified for me that "Holy Communion is, both in form and substance, a shared sacramental meal, and any exceptions to this principle" do not merely "fall short of what would be expected in any normal circumstances," as the guidance claims, but turn the Lord's Supper into something different, a memorial event rather than a dominical sacrament. What a priest celebrates in the absence of a congregation is not Holy Communion.

"The physical handling and sharing of the elements by participants in the same celebration is traditionally seen as essential to the sacramental action of Holy Communion." Because it is. This is not to deny that God in His grace can do marvellous things and, say, convey to a small gathering in a concentration camp without ordained minister or wine all the blessings Christians would ordinarily receive from Holy Communion. But where Ribena is substituted for wine, where rice is used instead of bread, or where only a single individual eats and drinks, there is not Holy Communion as instituted by our Lord Jesus Christ.

The guidance further notes: "In circumstances where there is a reasonable chance of contagion, the canonical doctrine of necessity permits the reception of Holy Communion in one kind." (The appeal to the 1547 Sacrament Act is not without problems, however, as I have observed in previous blog posts.) While the Book of Common Prayer nowhere envisages anyone receiving Holy Communion in one kind, it is true that "The Notes to the Celebration of Holy Communion at Home or in Hospital indicate that ‘Communion should normally be received in both kinds separately, but where necessary may be received in one kind whether of bread or, where the communicant cannot receive solid food, wine.’"

What seems to be overlooked here is that the permission given to communicants to receive in one kind is not at all the same as giving clergy permission to withhold the cup from those who desire to receive it, let alone instructing them to refuse the cup to the laity. It is difficult to see what the legal and canonical grounds for this latter move might be. 

The guidance asks that all communicants other than the presiding minister "should receive the bread only, in the hand." It adds: "As the Liturgical and Faith and Order Commissions have made clear, this is still ‘complete communion’." But is it? The claim that what previous Anglican divines have sometimes spoken of as a "half-communion" or a "mutilated sacrament" nevertheless allows for communicants to make "complete communion" is not wrong but it says both too little and too much.

The guidance does well to point to the following:

The Book of Common Prayer instructs us that if we offer ourselves in penitence and faith, giving thanks for the redemption won by Christ crucified, we may truly ‘eat and drink the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ’, although we cannot receive the sacrament physically in ourselves.

In other words, the reason why it is possible to receive "complete communion," even while not drinking from the cup is that it is possible to receive "complete communion" without either eating or drinking, without receiving the sacrament physically at all. It is not the case that the bread conveys something which cannot be received apart from the sacrament (and to which the cup does not add anything). In this sense the claim about "complete communion" in the guidance arguably says too little.

We understand why this is so once we ask what is received in Holy Communion. What is supremely offered in the Sacrament (and received by those whose instrument of reception consists of faith as well as mouth) is Jesus Christ himself. And it would of course be ridiculous to claim that the bread gives us one part of Christ, the wine another. Christ is not divided. Still, Anglicans in previous centuries were right to reject the doctrine of concomitance as commonly understood in that it introduces an erroneous material concept to what is received. 

Given that Christ is offered to us also in the Word, is anything different offered to us in the Sacrament? As it is true that the Sacrament cannot gives us the body and blood of Christ without giving us Christ, the whole Christ, both body and soul, in his divine as well as human nature, so it is true that the Word does not offer us Christ apart from his body and blood. Ultimately we receive the exact same grace in Word and Sacrament: Jesus Christ. 

But this does of course not mean that the Sacrament is superfluous. We receive Christ differently in eating and drinking. I hope to elaborate on this in a future post. But given that our Lord instituted both the eating and the drinking ("Drink this, all of you!"), the claim about "complete communion" is problematic. There can be complete spiritual communion, as noted just now, in that our communion is with Christ, but according to the sacramental mode of communion it is questionable whether we should speak of "complete communion" once people have eaten, as if drinking from the common cup poured for us is superfluous. 

In sum those who without faith merely receive the elements, even if they receive both, do themselves more harm than good. It is better to receive just one element with faith that both without. Indeed, it is far better to make spiritual communion than to receive the Sacrament in a merely carnal way. But it is better still if those who can receive Holy Communion in both kinds. Clergy are "ministers of Christ and stewards of the mysteries of God" (1 Corinthians 4:1) and have no right to change these mysteries or celebrate Holy Communion contrary to Christ's institution. 

Celebrating Holy Communion

There has been much controversy throughout the ages around the central liturgical event celebrated by the church, the Eucharist. The restrictions relating to containing the coronavirus have raised some of these afresh.

Holy Communion is not what it used to be. Let me list the reasons. First, we only gather in small numbers, when ideally the Eucharist is celebrated by the whole church. Secondly, in order to minimise risk, there is no sharing of the Peace through physical contact. Thirdly, government guidance indicates that ministers should not speak over uncovered “consumables” which means that bread and wine are covered during the Eucharistic Prayer. It also means that we lose the symbolism of people eating from the same broken bread and drinking from the same cup. Fourthly, the use of assistants is discouraged. Fifthly, the requirement to wear face masks in public places makes eating and drinking more of a fuss – sanitising before and after face masks are removed for communion is recommended and physical touch between minister and communicant must be avoided. Sixthly, the use of singing is severely restricted. Seventhly, kneeling at the altar rail is discouraged.

Seven is a full number, so I stop here. It is clear that our worship life is disrupted. Some of the precautions we are taking merely present an inconvenience. Kneeling for the reception of Holy Communion is our tradition but it is not essential for the rite. It is important that we are at peace with one another as we approach the Lord’s table but it is not essential that we have an opportunity to hug before eating and drinking. The disruption of other liturgical acts such as the breaking of the bread seems to me tolerable, even if undesirable.

At Monken Hadley we are used to individual communion wafers. As a result of the deep reflection on our practices encouraged by the Church of England at this time, I am inclined to think that we should abandon this in the long run. “We are one body because we all share in one bread” is a truth more readily present to us when we actually share from one loaf of bread broken for us. But for now we must be content with the wafers being distributed from one ciborium (cup that holds the wafers).

The current Church of England guidance also advises that at present “Communion should be administered in one kind only with no sharing of the common cup.” The advice recognises that “Holy Communion is, both in form and substance, a shared sacramental meal, and any exceptions to this principle fall short of what would be expected in any normal circumstances” (emphasis added). They observe: “This is reflected in the rubric in the Book of Common Prayer, which states that ‘there shall be no celebration of the Lord’s Supper, except there be a convenient number to communicate with the priest…” We may add that this is also clear from a careful reading of the rubrics in the Book of Common Prayer relating to the Communion of the Sick.

Nevertheless, members of the Liturgical Commission and the Faith & Order Commission appeal to “the doctrine of necessity,” a legal principle “which allows for exceptional actions to preserve a greater principle.” On this basis, they, and the House of Bishops, allowed the reintroduction of private masses in the Church of England.

Alas, I believe that they are fundamentally mistaken here. The Holy Communion is the church’s Eucharist and cannot be celebrated by an individual on their own. This has been “a greater principle” within the Church of England for the last 500 years and across the world in most other churches, excepting the Roman Catholic church.

Always offering both sacramental elements to all communicants is also a universal practice of the church, again with the exception of the Roman Catholic church. It is therefore disappointing that the Church of England guidance states that “The president alone should always take the wine, consuming all that has been consecrated; other com­municants should receive the bread only, in the hand.”

This is based on two or three things. Theologically, the observation that it is possible for a communicant to receive Holy Communion in one kind only leads to the alleged permissibility of withdrawing the cup from the laity altogether. But this does not follow. It is one thing for individual communicants to participate only partly in the eating and drinking of the church, it is another thing for the eating and drinking to be restricted to one individual. In the latter case it is no longer the body of Christ celebrating the Eucharist by eating and drinking. I therefore believe this to be illegitimate.

Legally, appeal is made to the 1547 Sacrament Act. The Reformation in England was shaped by political forces as well as theological ones. Henry VIII supported the Reformation in some ways and hindered it in other ways. His death paved the way for greater consistency in being a Reformed Catholic church. The return to the ancient practice of offering communion in both kinds, which Henry VIII had resisted, was part of this. The very first act of parliament under King Edward VI was the 1547 Sacrament Act, whose full title is: “An Acte against suche as shall unreverentlie speake against the Sacrament of the bodie and bloude of Christe commonlie called the Sacrament of the Altar, and for the receiving thereof in bothe kyndes.”

Since then Holy Communion has been offered in both kinds in the Church of England. The Act has since been largely repealed, except for section VIII, “Primitive Mode of receiving the Sacrament; The Sacrament shall be administered in both Kinds, Bread and Wine, to the People: After Exhortations of the Priest, the Sacrament shall not be denied. Not condemning the Usage of other Churches.” Again, the title tells the story. Lawyers arguing for the permissibility of offering Holy Communion in one kind only take comfort from the fact that the Act includes the phrase “excepte necessitie otherwise require.” They argue that the COVID-19 situation presents us with such a necessity. They do so in spite of the fact that Holy Communion in both kinds is celebrated in other churches and in spite of the fact that there is no evidence that Bishops ushered a similar instruction during the great plague or any other outbreaks of illness in the last few hundred years.

The fact is that the original Book of Common Prayer was published only two years later (1549) and nowhere anticipates that anyone might take communion in one kind only. The rubrics relating to the Communion of the sick indicate that even in this case communion was in both kinds. When the Council of Trent in July 1562 enshrined the doctrine of transubstantiation and the practice of with­holding the cup from the laity and condemning those who taught otherwise, our Archbishop Parker replied (1563) by writing what we now know as Article XXX of the Thirty-Nine Articles:

The Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the Lay-people: for both the parts of the Lord’s Sacrament, by Christ’s ordinance and commandment, ought to be ministered to all Christian men alike.

I have consulted a good number of volumes from the 17th, 18th, 19th and 20th centuries with titles such as An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles and found not one suggesting that this Article has been or might be suspended during a plague or at any other time. Several Anglican writers throughout the centuries spoke of withdrawing the cup as mutilating the sacrament. (Some citations can be found at https://hadleyrectory.blogspot.com/)

I hope to say more about this in the next issue of the magazine, in which I also plan to examine the claim of the Liturgical and Faith and Order Commissions that what some earlier Anglican divines referred to as a “half-communion” is still “complete communion.”

For now, it is sufficient to say that I take my stand with the Reformed Catholic tradition enshrined in the Book of Common Prayer and the Thirty-Nine Articles and will therefore not celebrate Holy Communion in a form in which “Drink this, all of you” is suspended.

Thankfully, the Church of England has so far issued guidance on this matter, not instruction. In the light of concerns about drinking from a common cup, I have decided to consecrate a flagon with closed lid alongside a ciborium with individual wafers. I wear a face mask and visor during the actual distribution.

Any baptised Christian who is reconciled with God and with fellow members of the body of Christ and who wishes to receive the bread shall come forward and open their hands (traditionally putting the right hand over the left). Those who also wish to receive from the common cup (flagon) are invited to bring their own glass or cup into which I then pour from the flagon.

Words like “the Body of Christ given for you” and “the Blood of Christ shed for you” are at present not said to individuals, again to minimise breathing over the elements. Nevertheless, as you receive, know that this is personal and individual as well as something we do together as the body of Christ.

May we soon be able to mingle and celebrate freely without any of these restrictions, but in the meantime let us give thanks to God in all circumstances, rejoicing in the fact that no virus can limit Him in the way He wants to minister to our souls.

PS: The House of Bishops has not given permission for the use of individual cups on the grounds that the legal opinion given to them claims that such would be illegal within the Church of England. I have carefully studied this legal opinion and myself do not believe that it would stand up in court. I am not a lawyer, of course, but I take comfort from the fact that the flaws in the reasoning are fairly obvious and that another lengthy legal opinion has now been published, arguing that the use of individual cups is not illegal.

God's Real Presence

 Emmanuel – God is with us – But how?

Our Lord Jesus Christ is also called Emmanuel (or: Immanuel), which in English means God-with-us. He promised that “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” But does this mean that he is not with us when we are on our own? And does his real presence in the Eucharist mean that he is really absent when we do not celebrate the Eucharist?

God is omnipresent. The Scriptures testify to this, logic demands it based on what God has revealed about who he is, and our tradition unequivocally affirms it. But while God is everywhere, He has chosen to dwell among his people. While God is everywhere present, He can be said to depart and to be absent. Thus, in Ezekiel 10–11 we read a dramatic account of the glory of the Lord leaving the temple and the city of Jerusalem. How does this work?

God is omnipresent in the sense that everyone and everything in all of creation is always present to him – nothing escapes His notice; none can flee from His presence (cf. Psalm 139). But while everyone is present to Him, He is not always present to everyone in the sense of being accessible to everyone. For God to withdraw Himself means that God withdraws His accessibility. It is a horrifying prospect to contemplate.

God is perfectly good and cannot tolerate evil in His presence. Evil therefore drives Him away in the sense of making Him inaccessible. The apostle Paul observes with words from Psalm 14 that we have all turned aside from God (Romans 3:12). And we do not have the ability to turn back to Him. But God has turned to us. In Christ He came to dwell among us, dealing with the sin that separates us from Him on the cross. God is present everywhere but in Christ He is present to us in all his favour and compassion.

And Christ promised His disciples to be with them always, to the end of the age (Matthew 28:20), not of course in the form of his risen and ascended body but through the Spirit He poured on His people on the day of Pentecost.

Christ has given the Holy Spirit to each one who puts their trust in him. He is therefore always present with a Christian, even when that Christian is on his or her own.

So why did Jesus say, “where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” (Matthew 18:20)? First, note that this is the conclusion to a debate that begins with a question the disciples had put to Jesus: “Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” (verse 1) He answers by calling a child and speaking about being humble. He says, “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.” (verse 5). In other words, we can welcome Christ in welcoming (even) the humblest (apparently most insignificant) of people.

Jesus continues this by warning about the seriousness of creating a stumbling-block for such little ones, or despising them. He speaks of the need to deal with offences committed within the church, if at all possible, in a way that leads to reconciliation, although, if an offender refuses to listen to the church, exclusion is required. Such a decision cannot be made by an individual. It is in this connection that Jesus speaks of binding and loosing (verse 18, retaining guilt or absolving) and promises that His Father will honour such an agreement, before adding “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.”

In other words, Jesus speaks into a situation in which two or three witnesses are required to confront and convict a church member of their sin and affirms that in this process He is with His people. It is not a matter of Christ being more present when two or three are gathered in His name but of Him being present in a specific process.

This may help us, as we reflect on Christ’s presence when we gather to celebrate the Eucharist. Trusting His promise, we do believe that Christ is present with us, as we gather to worship Him, even if we do not celebrate the Eucharist. And because Christ’s presence cannot be divided into bits and pieces, it would be wrong to say that He is more present when we celebrate the Eucharist. But we may want to say that He is present in a different mode.

Christ is present to us in the Eucharist as a host who gives us to eat and drink. The apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians speaks of partaking of “the table of the Lord” and calls the cup that we drink “the cup of the Lord” (chapter 10). He speaks of Holy Communion as “the Lord’s Supper” (chapter 11). Thus, it is clear that Christ meets us here as the host, giving us bread to eat and wine to drink. But as our mouth receives bread and wine, we share in more than bread and wine.

“The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 10:16) In the Eucharist Christ provides us with a sensible connection to Calvary in that we can taste and feel that He brought His body as a sacrifice and shed His blood for us on the cross and “as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Corinthians 11:26).

And we are also made sensible of the fact that the “us” for whom Christ’s blood was shed is a body. “Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.” (1 Corinthians 10:17). It is not possible to celebrate Holy Communion on one’s own. Just as church discipline requires at least two or three to be gathered in agreement, so does the Eucharist.

Much more could be said about the contexts in which it is proper or improper to celebrate the Eucharist. Sufficient to say here that the Church of England requires an ordained presbyter/priest to preside at Holy Communion. This is to safeguard that the gathering is really of the body of Christ rather than a splinter group.

What does this mean in our current situation? It means that there is a mode of Christ’s presence which we cannot experience, unless we meet together eating and drinking at the Eucharist. We should desire and pray for this to become possible for all of us. But when we gather for services without the Eucharist, we still gather as the body of Christ and Christ is present to us in a different mode from when we pray on our own. There is a special blessing on Christ’s presence as his body; we should not neglect meeting together (Hebrews 10:25).

Alone, I am member of the body of Christ. I am not the body. For the body of Christ to come together, it does not need all Christians to be in the same place at the same time. But as far as possible, we are to meet with Christians in our neighbourhood.

What about Zoom? There is much that is lacking when we meet via Zoom, not least the Eucharist. But we have experienced real fellow­ship over recent months and we are able to do something together as the body of Christ, with some people reading, others leading us in prayers, others leading us in singing, the children sharing their art work. Surely Christ continues to be present not only with each one of us individually but in the manner of his body, as we meet virtually.  

Concomitance

“The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ?” (1 Corinthians 11:16)

The “Catholic Dictionary” offers the following definition of concomitance:

The doctrine that explains why the whole Christ is present under each Eucharistic species. Christ is indivisible, so that his body cannot be separated from his blood, his human soul, his divine nature, and his divine personality. Consequently he is wholly present in the Eucharist. But only the substance of his body is the specific effect of the first consecration at Mass; his blood, soul, divinity, and personality become present by concomitance, i.e., by the inseparable connection that they have with his body. The Church also says the "substance" of Christ’s body because its accidents, though imperceptible, are also present by same concomitance, not precisely because of the words of consecration.

In the second consecration, the conversion terminates specifically in the presence of the substance of Christ’s blood. But again by concomitance his body and entire self become present as well. (Etym. Latin concomitantia, accompaniment.)

This doctrine relies on the belief that communicants are offered Christ’s risen and ascended body and blood, and not his body and blood as given for us at the cross. While no Christian would want to deny that our fellowship is indeed with the living Christ who by His Holy Spirit makes Himself present to us, and while it may be granted that in the Sacrament we are raised to heaven, receiving a foretaste of the future, nevertheless “as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” (1 Corinthians 11:26) This is in accordance with the words of Christ at the institution: “Then he took a cup, and after giving thanks he gave it to them, saying, ‘Drink from it, all of you; for this is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” (Matthew 26:27-28) What is offered to communicants is the blood shed for our sins, not the blood throbbing through the veins of the risen and ascended Christ.

Reformed Catholics have therefore largely rejected the doctrine of concomitance:

“We say and believe, that we receive the body and blood of Christ truly, and not a figure or sign ; but even that body which suffered death on the cross, and that blood which was shed for the forgiveness of sins.”

Bishop John Jewel (1522-1571), On the Sacraments, cited in An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles by the Reformers – the Rev. Thomas R. Jones (1849), 189

The dream of the Church of Rome, that he that receives the body receives also the blood, because, by concomitance, the blood is received in the body, – is ... not true, because, the eucharist being the sacrament of the Lord’s death, that is, of his body broken and his blood poured forth, the taking of the sacrament of the body does not by concomitance include the blood; because the body is here sacramentally represented as slain and separate from blood.

Jeremy Taylor [1613-1667], Ductor Dubitantum or The Rule of Conscience in All Her General Measures: Serving as a Great Instrument for the Determination of Cases of Conscience in Four Books, vol. 2 ed. by Alexander Taylor (Eugene: Or: Wipf and Stock, 2009), 544; cf. The whole works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor, vol. 13: Containing a Continuation of the Rule of Conscience (1839), 28–29.

The following citations were gleaned by following links from the Resources on the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion on the Prydain blog.

The design of the sacrament is “to represent Christ to us as dead, and in his crucified, but not in his glorified state.”

An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England – Bp. Gilbert Burnet (1699, although this revision by James R. Page is dated 1842), 454-55.

“Now the Romanists do but trifle, when they say, that the blood is with the body; since in the eucharist we commemorate, not the life of our Lord, but his death, in which his blood was separated from his body.”

The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England – Archdeacon Edward Welchman (1713 or shortly after that, although this reprint is dated 1842)

“to partake of both body and blood, we must receive both the bread and the wine” 

An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England – Bp. William Beveridge [1637-1708] (1830), 519. This exposition offers a good number of citations from the earlier church.

“It is material to notice the reason assigned by our Redeemer why all the Apostles were to drink of the Cup, “for this is my blood of the New Testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” All, therefore, who stand in need of remission of sins, are to drink of the Cup; that is, all mankind, laity as well as Clergy.”

The Churchman’s Guide in Perilous Times, – the Rev. Thomas Pigot, A.M. (1835), 94; cf. Elements of Christian Theology (vol.2) – Bishop George Pretyman Tomline (first published 1799; this edition 1843), 432

“our Lord appointed each of the elements by consecration to communicate a particular blessing, and therefore those who deny the cup to lay people deprive them, so far as lies in their power, of a portion of the benefit of the sacrament.”

A Catechism on the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England – the Rev. James Beaven, D.D. (1850), 94. Bp. A.P. Forbes in An Explanation of the Thirty-Nine Articles  (1871) seeks to define the deprivation, arguing that, “While the Sacrament under one kind conveys all the graces necessary to  salvation, the Chalice has a special grace of its own – the grace of gladdening...that of the meat is to strengthen the weak” (599).

cf. Sermons, explanatory and practical, on the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, by the Rev. T. Waite (1826), 440

Notes on transubstantiation

While they were eating, Jesus took bread, and after giving thanks he broke it, gave it to his disciples, and said, “Take, eat, this is my body.” And after taking the cup and giving thanks, he gave it to them, saying, “Drink from it, all of you, for this is my blood, the blood of the covenant, that is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”

Matthew 26:26-28

Then he took bread, and after giving thanks he broke it and gave it to them, saying, “This is my body which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” And in the same way he took the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”

Luke 22:19-20

 

For some it is obvious that when Jesus says “this is my body,” the bread he gave to his disciples was indeed in every sense his body and, because Christ cannot be divided, also his blood and his soul and his divine nature. And that what was poured from the cup was substantially identical.

For others it is obvious that Jesus and his disciples would not for a moment have thought that the pieces of bread they were putting in their mouths were the person sitting or leaning at the table with them and would not have identified without remainder the wine poured out with the blood which at this moment was still pulsating through Christ’s veins.

The latter need not deny the change that takes place to the elements when we celebrate the Eucharist. It is possible to say that when we eat and drink at the Eucharist, what we eat and drink are essentially no longer mere bread and wine but the Body and Blood of Christ given for us, and to say so without adopting the specific doctrine of transubstantiation.

This doctrine of transubstantiation aligns with the intuitions of those whose identification of the bread with the body of Christ allows for no real (substantial) distinction between the blood pulsating through the veins of the body of Jesus as he pours from the cup and what is poured from the cup.

As understood here, the doctrine requires the belief that by the words of consecration pronounced by the priest the bread and wine are changed, as to their substance, into the real flesh and blood of Christ so that the bread and wine altogether cease to exist, except in appearance only.

(Some theologians of the 17th and 18th centuries, who did not believe in the existence of accidents separable from the substance, had argued that the elements no longer truly even had the texture and taste of bread and wine but that our subjective impressions were effected miraculously by God. But this was not received as compatible with the teaching of the Council of Trent which had enshrined the doctrine of transubstantiation.)

Theologians defending the doctrine regularly stress that the conversion of substance does not concern physical matter but the more fundamental, essential nature of the elements. For this reason use of the term “substance” when talking about this change (transubstantiation) could be considered unfortunate, given that common English usage of “substance” overlaps with Latin substantia (“being, essence, material”) precisely in that area (“material”) which is not in view here.

Ludwig Ott (Fundamentals of Catholic Dogma, edited in English by James Canon Bastible [Cork: Mercier Press, 1962]) calls transubstantiation unique because other conversions are either of accidents or substance. As an example for conversio accidentialis he speaks of a block of marble becoming a statue. But what does it mean to say that a statue is substantially still “a block of marble”? Is a statue not essentially (i.e., in being and essence substantially) different from a block of marble? Is not the only aspect with regard to which a block of marble and a statue are substantially the same their material?

Perhaps Ott has merely chosen an unfortunate illustration. After all, he knows that it is not sufficient to believe that transubstantiation is a change of the whole substance, matter and form, but also that one must here dissociate “matter” from “material” to avoid the notion that the elements received in the Eucharist have any of the physical aspects of the Body and Blood of Christ. (The physical aspects [accidents] of the Body and Blood of Christ are indeed taught to be present in the Sacrament but in the mode of a substance.)

Once the bread is broken and received, the faithful have not received a mere piece of the Body of Christ but the whole Body of Christ. (And while each morsel is the Body of Christ, none would want to say that more than one Body of Christ is present.)

Just as the soul is wholly present in the whole body and wholly present in every part of the body, and still is present only once in the whole body, so also the body of Christ is only once actually present in the whole form.

Ludwig Ott adds: “Potentially, however, Christ is capable of being present in a multifold manner. This multifold Presence occurs actually only after the separation of the previously united parts of the species.” (Fundamentals, 385) This also explains how the presence of Christ is understood in the Last Supper (see above). Christ was present once – but in a multifold manner.

The doctrine of transubstantiation relates to the belief that the Sacrament is essentially a substance which has been tied to material elements in an action rather than the liturgical action itself. The Real Presence of Christ is understood to be permanently tied to each species (bread and wine) from the moment of consecration until the species are dissolved.

When the species are corrupted, in place of the body and blood of Christ, those substances probably appear which correspond to the specific nature of the altered accidents. (Fundamentals, 387)

 This appears to answer some of the queries that have been raised over the centuries. Yes, when a morsel falls to the ground after consecration and is eaten by a mouse, the mouse consumes the body (and blood and soul and divine nature) of Christ. No, when you go to the toilet after partaking of Holy Communion, you do not release the Body and Blood of Christ.

Communion of the Sick

A few notes and deliberations concerning the Communion of the Sick service in the Book of Common Prayer based on John Dowden, Further Studies in the Prayer Book (London: Methuen, 1908). Dowden was Bishop of Edinburgh at the time.

Medieval service books made no provision for a celebration of the Eucharist in the home of a sick person. "The sick were communicated with the reserved Sacrament in one kind." (248) 

The rubrics in the 1549 Prayer Book instruct the priest to reserve "so much of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood as shall serve the sick person and so many as shall communicate with him, if there be any" on days on which Communion was celebrated in church. The change to bringing Communion in both kinds to the sick is also found in the Brandenburg Church Order of 1540 and the Pfalz-Neuburg Order of 1543, "the most conservative of the liturgical movements in the German states" which is to say those staying most closely to received Roman forms. The Pfalz-Neuburg Order was apparently known to the English Reformers.

"In no case was the Sacrament to be kept beyond the day upon which it was consecrated." (249) On other days, therefore, a celebration was to be held in the home of the sick person.

"The great majority of the German Church Orders, however, did not sanction the carrying of the Sacrament to the sick man's house; and, as we know, in 1552 the conveyance of the Sacrament to the sick man's house disappeared with us." (251)

Different from our Prayer Book, "in the German Church Orders the communicating of the people in the sacrament of the Body of Christ before the consecration of the cup is a frequent feature." (252) 

Similar to our Prayer Book, there are instructions for assembling people for such a Communion service not only from the same household as the sick but from neighbours as well so that there are always "a good number to receive the Communion with the sick person" (1552 Prayer Book).

 

Against Withholding the Cup

Christ instituted the sacrament of his body and blood in both kinds. To break Christ's institution is a damnable error.

The works of the Most Reverend Father in God, William Laud [1573-1645], sometime Lord Archbishop of Canterbury, vol 2: Conference with Fisher, 288. The doctrine of concomitance is specifically rejected on pages 338–39.

 

The dream of the Church of Rome, that he that receives the body receives also the blood, because, by concomitance, the blood is received in the body, – is ... not true, because, the eucharist being the sacrament of the Lord’s death, that is, of his body broken and his blood poured forth, the taking of the sacrament of the body does not by concomitance include the blood; because the body is here sacramentally represented as slain and separate from blood.

The whole works of the Right Rev. Jeremy Taylor [1613-1667], vol. 13: Containing a Continuation of the Rule of Conscience (1839), 28–29. He also insists that “the effect of a sacrament is not imparted by a half-communion,” comparing this to dipping a child in water without invoking the Trinity.

 

We do not indeed wish to deny that those who, in faith and ignorance, receive a mutilated Sacrament, may receive the full blessing...But this does not prevent us from saying, that the Eucharist without the cup is not the Eucharist ordained of Christ.

Edward Harold Browne, An Exposition of the Thirty-nine Articles: Historical and Doctrinal (1874). “Mutilation” language was already used by John Cosin and is found in other Anglican writers. The context makes it clear that “Eucharist without a cup” means a Eucharist in which only the priest drinks from the cup, see pages 738–43.

 

Where the gifts are so carefully distinguished by our Lord and His Apostle, it seems the height of presumption to assert that “they who receive one kind alone are not defrauded of any grace necessary to salvation.”

Edgar C. S. Gibson, The Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England: Explained with an Introduction (1896), page 685.

 

The practice [of denying the cup to the laity] is utterly indefensible. Not only does it rest on a precarious theological speculation, but it is in open disobedience to the express command of Christ. It is defended as a useful ecclesiastical regulation. The Church has, indeed, authority to decree rites and ceremonies, but not in contradiction to Scripture and to our Lord’s own words. It cannot be denied that the practice has a certain practical convenience. But we cannot set that against the plain direction of Christ.

E. J. Bicknell, A Theological Introduction to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, 3rd ed. rev. by H. J. Carpenter (London: Longman, 1955), 408-409.

 

We take our stand on the institution of Christ, and both in the Catechism and in the Articles this is emphasised. It is impossible to argue that the custom [of withholding the cup] is permissible because the context of St. Paul’s words is conclusive in support of Communion in both kinds (1 Cor. xi. 26, 27). The answer in the Catechism is as follows: “Bread and Wine, which the Lord hath commanded to be received.” This simple statement is a striking illustration of the way in which our Church safeguards the true position by teaching positively, apart from the controversy, as well as in the Article, that our Lord’s ordinance and commandment settle the question.

Nor can we for a moment allow that the Church’s power suffices to alter a Divine command. We fully recognise that the Church has “power to decree rites and ceremonies” (Article XX), but this cannot be extended to authorise anything “contrary to God’s Word written,” and Holy Scripture is too clear on this point to admit of any question (Matt. xxvi. 27).

W. H. Griffith Thomas, The Principles of Theology: An Introduction to the Thirty-Nine Articles, 6th ed. (London: Vine Books, 1976), 413

For citations from earlier Anglican writers, see conveniently An Exposition of the Thirty-Nine Articles by the Reformers – the Rev. Thomas R. Jones (1849), 195-98

it cannot be the Lord’s supper except there be distribution both of the bread and of the wine.

Thomas Becon (1511-1567)

A History of Withholding the Cup

There appear to have been a few instances of clergy withholding the cup from the laity in the early church to prevent the carrying home of the elements in a superstitious way. By the fifth century Decrees of Popes (Leo the Great, Gelasius) made the withholding of the cup heretical. But towards the close of the eleventh century the practice re-emerged in the Western Church. 

It was condemned by the Council of Clermont in 1095, and again by Pope Paschal II in 1118. But the practice spread during the next two centuries and was defended by ecclesiastical writers. The change was made gradually. Aquinas, who died in 1274, only speaks of it as the custom of many churches. Evidence of the survival of primitive practice is found as late as the middle of the fourteenth century. When the Council of Constance met in 1415 it was widely hoped that the abuse would be checked. Unhappily communion in one kind was formally adopted as the official practice of the Church. The Council claimed for the Church the power of ordering that the sacrament should be given to the laity in one kind only.

E. J. Bicknell, A Theological Introduction to the Thirty-Nine Articles of the Church of England, 3rd ed. rev. by H. J. Carpenter (London: Longman, 1955), 408-409.

Note that the relevant decision was made before the meeting was considered "a duly convened ecumenical council." See here for the promulgations of the Council of Constance. A comment in An Explanation of the Thirty-Nine Articles by A. P. Forbes (1817-1875) suggests that resistance to the withdrawal of the cup was strong in England: "In England, the Cup could not be withdrawn without the introduction of an unconsecrated drink, which was given ostensibly to assist in the deglutition of the Blessed Sacrament under the form of Bread, but probably to pacify the people for the loss of the Divine Chalice." (594)

The restoration of the cup to the laity was a key concern of the Reformers. While they disagreed on the way in which Christ should be understood to be present in the Eucharist, they were "united in demanding that there should be no celebration of the Eucharist which did not include the communion of the people and not just of the priest alone, and that this reception should be of both bread and cup and not just of bread alone" (R. C. D. Jasper and Paul F. Bradshaw, A Companion to the Alternative Service Book [London: SPCK, 1986], 162).

In England the very first act of parliament following the death of Henry VIII was concerned with restoring the primitive practice of Communion in both kinds (never abandoned in the East). The fact that this Sacrament Act of 1547 includes the phrase "excepte necessitie otherwise require" has played a significant role in recent discussion of the practice but I know of no evidence of it playing any role within the Church of England subsequent to the publication of the Book of Common Prayer (1549; cf. 1662), which envisages no circumstances in which the Sacrament might be offered in one kind only. The Thirty-Nine Articles (finalised 1571) include one stating that "it is not lawful for the Church to ordain anything contrary to God's word written" (Art. XX) and one (Art. XXX) which unambiguously resolved the question whether Holy Communion had to be offered in both kinds:

The Cup of the Lord is not to be denied to the lay people; for both parts of the Lord's sacrament, by Christ's ordinance and commandment, ought to be ministered to all Christian men alike.

There seems to be no evidence of bishops or clergy within the Church of England denying the Cup to the laity in subsequent centuries, including during the great plague years, until the Swine Flue epidemic in 2009. This had perhaps been facilitated by the notes in the liturgy for ministry to the sick in Common Worship which lacked the Book of Common Prayer's emphasis on the desirability of a congregation of communicants surrounding the sick and for the first time envisages 

Communion should normally be received in both kinds separately, but where necessary may be received in one kind, whether of bread or, where the communicant cannot receive solid food, wine.

It should be noted, however, that the permission to receive in one kind is a rather different matter from withholding the cup from communicants who are able and willing to receive, and that the subsequent note echoes the Book of Common Prayer's explanation on the possibility of eating the Body of Christ and drinking his Blood without receiving either element:

Believers who cannot physically receive the sacrament are to be assured that they are partakers by faith of the body and blood of Christ and of the benefits he conveys to us by them.

Cf. the rubric in the Book of Common Prayer

if he do truly repent him of his sins, and stedfastly believe that Jesus Christ hath suffered death upon the Cross for him, and shed his Blood for his redemption, earnestly remembering the benefits he hath thereby, and giving him hearty thanks therefore; he doth eat and drink the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ profitably to his soul's health, although he do not receive the Sacrament with his mouth.

Our God has bound himself to the Sacrament but he is not bound by it. He can convey the same benefits without it. This is why faithful believers who abstain from taking the bread or the wine may still receive the same spiritual benefits, as those who receive the Sacrament in its fullness.

Update (27 Nov 2021): See now also Drew Nathaniel Keane's essay Coronavirus and Communion in One Kind.