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.
