Covid 19 and Communion

Discussion in 'Sacraments, Sacred Rites, and Holy Orders' started by Botolph, Dec 3, 2020.

  1. Botolph

    Botolph Well-Known Member

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    In Australia we are thankfully / hopefully emerging from the worst of the Pandemic. We have had single digit case numbers, mostly in returning travelers and a bit escaping from hotel quarantine.

    Each of our 24 Bishops has managed the response in their own Diocese, and although they have no doubt had their chats there are some variance as to how things happen.

    Our Bishop has told us we can have a carol service so long a people don't sing. I am not sure if he imagines the Service of 9 Lessons and Meditative Pauses, and I am not sure if Silent Night is on the agenda, off the agenda or just is the agenda!

    We have for some time been communicated in one kind, and whilst I readily recognise the reformation principle enshrined in Article XXX, I am sufficiently OK with a doctrine of concomitance and in the face of the situation have accepted that is OK.

    From this Sunday however we will be communicating in both kinds using individual glasses. This I find a little more challenging and I see it as a race down the candlestick. I have only struch the practice in congregations of the reformation tradition, and a few Anglican Parishes in Sydney who see the reformation as the goal.

    Am I being too precious?

    1 Corinthians 10:15-17
    I speak as to sensible people; judge for yourselves what I say. 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? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.​

    I see the shared cup as a part of our Anglican Tradition, and I am not sure how I should feel about this.
     
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  2. bwallac2335

    bwallac2335 Well-Known Member

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    I see a big problem with that. Are you not supposed to drink the left over wine? How can you do that if it comes in little individual cups?
     
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  3. Shane R

    Shane R Well-Known Member

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    The Continuing churches responded in a variety of different ways. Some suspended distribution of the chalice and communed the faithful in one kind. Some shut down public worship altogether for about 4 months. Some went on a schedule of Morning Prayer.

    My own bishop gave the parishes the option of going to a service of Morning Prayer or communing the faithful by intinction. My parish has communed everyone by intinction for some time now.
     
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  4. Botolph

    Botolph Well-Known Member

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    I concur.

    I don't understand why we have not gone down this road as well. Intinction seems to me to be responsible from a public health perspective and preserves the tradition of the common cup.

    It will be interesting to see how I feel about it all on Sunday, at the moment I suspect I might communicate in one kind, whilst I am not sure that is fair, it may be the best I have to offer with integrity.
     
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  5. bwallac2335

    bwallac2335 Well-Known Member

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    I always only take one kind. I take a daily medication that says no alcohol and I take that strictly. I don't know how little will hurt me
     
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  6. Stalwart

    Stalwart Well-Known Member Anglican

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    In my traditionalist parish, we are just given the host.
     
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  7. Botolph

    Botolph Well-Known Member

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    So here is the follow up.

    I attended on Sunday resolved to communicate in one kind. At the time of communion I came forward and received the host, and returned to my seat to find I had been followed by the minister of the little glasses, so had no choice but to communicate in both kinds or cause a fuss. So much for the best laid plans of mice and men.

    There are of course a couple of procedural question about how you get the sacrament to the little glasses, either a risky pouring operation, or a pre-order tray of little glasses and a very big corporal. The ablutions is the other issue, which was largely ignored as at the end of the service there was a tray of empty unwashed little glasses and the tray with to full little glasses that were just ignored, as if somehow the sacramental integrity just disappeared. Given that I am not a receptionist, I find this difficult.
     
  8. bwallac2335

    bwallac2335 Well-Known Member

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    I find that hard to deal with. The 2019 says that you have to finish the wine and bread unless some is stored for those who can not come to the service. Well there is the part that the Bishop can allow you to do something else but I took it to mean that you could store more of it. I find it highly disrespectful of the elements to just leave and ignore them
     
  9. Fr. Brench

    Fr. Brench Well-Known Member Anglican

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    That is a quick fix to a disastrous rubric in the first printing which permitted extra consecrated wine to be "reverently poured in a place set aside for that purpose." We dodged a bullet there; enough people made an uproar about that it was fixed by the College of Bishops the same weekend that the BCP was publicly released!

    Back to the original post, I share your hesitation, Boltoph, to go down the path of the individual cups. Many (most?) in my diocese have gone for the tacky pre-packaged thing, which is probably not even wine but grape juice. How one can confidently say that consecrating such things is valid is beyond me. And although there are some pretty nifty devices out there which safely pre-fill the shot glasses, there is no easy way to clean them in a manner consistent with high church piety. So I've avoided it entirely by advising my congregation not to drink of the cup; most intinct anyway.
     
  10. Rexlion

    Rexlion Well-Known Member

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    We will have Lessons and Carols tomorrow, and we most certainly will sing!!! :clap: And I will be delivering the second lesson (Genesis 3:1-24).

    Our rector made a point of saying, about the cup, that a study had been done involving precious metal vessels and wine, and it concluded that between the two factors (germ-killing properties of gold and alcohol content of wine), no transmission should take place. We use port wine which, even after watering, still has a decent alcohol content. I did a quick online search and came across a couple of supporting articles:
    https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2005-jan-01-me-beliefs1-story.html
    https://www.livescience.com/7326-wine-kills-germs-contact.html
    It seems that wine contains more germ-fighters than just the alcohol!
     
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