After 'sit and watch' we need to recover 'Take and eat, drink'

... it's received, it's eaten, it's consumed - Augustine, Sermon 227, on the Eucharist

But the reception of communion was not the primary mode of lay encounter with the Host ... for most people, most of the time the Host was something to be seen, not to be consumed - Eamon Duffy, The Stripping of the Altars.

For much of the past year in these Islands and elsewhere, the Eucharistic practice of Anglicans has been described by Duffy's account of late medieval practice in England.  We have sat and watched through screens.  We have not received, eaten, and consumed.  

We have reverted to un-Reformed and un-Augustinian Eucharistic practices: private masses, laity observing the Eucharist through a screen, communion in one kind when in-person worship was permitted.

The successful roll-out of the vaccination programme in the United Kingdom and the impending relaxation of restrictions allow us to now begin to think about a return to Reformed Catholic, Augustinian practice.  Such a return should be regarded as both a challenge and an opportunity.  It is a challenge because those un-Reformed practices may, over the past year, have become a habit, potentially shaping worship and piety.  It can also be an opportunity to be renewed by drinking deeply from the Reformed Catholic teaching of the Book of Common Prayer, allowing us to embrace with fresh vigour the Eucharistic practices of the Prayer Book.

We will move from 'sit and watch' to 'Take and eat'.  The Sacrament is not something to be observed from afar.  We will again receive, eat, and consume, as the Lord commanded.  

Christ did not ordain his sacraments to this use, that one should receive them for another, and the priest for all the lay people; but he ordained them for this intent, that every man should receive them for himself, to ratify, confirm, and established his own faith and everlasting salvation - Cranmer, A Defence of the True and Catholic Doctrine of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ V.X.

Joyous proclamation should accompany a restoration of Sacramental participation, as we realize how incomparably richer 'Take and eat' is to 'sit and watch'.  

For as the word of God preached putteth Christ into our ears; so likewise these elements of water, bread, and wine, joined to God’s word, do after a sacramental manner put Christ into our eyes, mouths, hands, and all our senses - Cranmer, A Defence I.XII.

Practice over the past year has suggested that 'sit and watch' can somehow be regarded as a suitable alternative to 'Take and eat, drink'.  It is not.  The physical elements of the Sacraments are not props that can be dispensed with.  The Prayer Book title for the Communion Office begins 'The Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper'.  The Catechism terms it 'the Supper of the Lord'.  Article 28 is entitled De Coena Domini. Eating and drinking is intrinsic to this Sacrament.  'Sit and watch' is nothing like 'Take and eat, drink'. As restrictions are ended and in-person worship returns, the character of the Holy Supper as the Sacrament in which we eat and drink must be joyfully and robustly proclaimed.

Joy and richness should also find expression in the restoration of the common cup.  The Eucharist, as Jewel declared, echoing Augustine, is 'The Sacrament of bread and wine'.  We drink of the fruit of the vine in anticipation of the fulfillment of the Kingdom of God (Luke 22:18), the 'well refined' wines which the Prophet foresaw in the banquet of the Kingdom.  The wine is the outward sign of the inward gift of which we partake in the holy Sacrament, 'the innumerable benefits which by his precious blood-shedding he hath obtained for us'.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, communion in one kind has been suspended amongst Anglicans in these Islands and elsewhere. We have denied what Article 30 describes as Calix Domini, 'the Cup of the Lord', to all but the priest administering the holy Sacrament. To use words of Jeremy Taylor, we have moved 'from receiving the whole Sacrament to receive it but half'.

In doing so, not only has physical confidence in the common cup been undermined.  The place, significance, and importance of the sign of wine in the Sacrament has also been undermined.  It has been dispensed with over the past year during in-person worship and so the promise and assurance of our spiritual partaking of the Lord's blood, shed for us, has been diminished. 

For here, in a mystery and Sacrament of bread, is set before us the body of Christ our Saviour; and his blood in the Sacrament of Wine - Jewel, A Treatise of the Sacraments.

The mangling of the Sacrament that occurs through private masses, non-communicating observance, and communion in one kind need not have occurred. Public health requirements and classical Anglican Eucharistic teaching could have both been respected through a rediscovery of Mattins and Ante-Communion. It was not to be.

After the vaccination program has been completed, any delay in the restoration of the common cup will only compound the damage inflicted to date. Teaching marked by vigour and joy must accompany the return of the Cup of the Lord to the laity, following 'Christ's ordinance and commandment'.

If the pandemic has been marked by a reversion to un-Reformed practices of private masses, non-communicating attendance, and communion in one kind, it has also seen the embrace of Puritan practices, including - when in-person worship has been permitted - abandoning the words of administration addressed to each communicant.

Hooker noted the Puritan criticism of the Prayer Book Communion that it addressed words of administration not to a 'generality once for all', but 'unto every particular person ... which is according to the popish manner' (LEP V.68.1).  Against this he pointed to the deep sacramental significance of addressing words of administration to each communicant: 'God by sacraments doth apply in particular unto every man's person the grace which himself hath provided for the benefit of all' (V.68.2).  The words of administration express to each communicant the teaching of the Catechism:

What is the inward part, or thing signified?

The Body and Blood of Christ, which are verily and indeed taken and received by the faithful in the Lord's Supper.

The absence of the words of administration, with the consecrated elements distributed without accompanying words, can too easily be taken to imply what Jewel condemned, the notion that the Lord's Supper 'is but a cold ceremony only, and nothing to be wrought therein'.

Similarly, Puritan practice has also been echoed in administering the Sacrament to communicants in the pew, often sitting.  If the Sacrament is merely 'some show or dumb resemblance of a spiritual feast, it may be that sitting were the fitter ceremony' (LEP V.68.3).   The restoration of kneeling to receive the holy Sacrament is an opportunity to declare afresh that we are 'coming as receivers of inestimable grace at the hands of God'; that, in the words of the rubric, it is 'a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgement of the benefits of Christ therein given to all worthy receivers'.  

Assessing the damage inflicted upon our theology and piety will, no doubt, take time.  It is very difficult, however, not to believe that the mangling of the Eucharist that has occurred through 'sit and watch' will have longer term consequences.  This makes it all the more vital that the return of the Prayer Book's Reformed Catholic Eucharistic practice is accompanied with a confident, robust, and joyful proclamation of its Sacramental teaching, allowing these practices and that teaching to take new root, that we might again draw near with faith, and take this holy Sacrament to our comfort.