When we gather together at Eucharist, we are gathering at Jesus’ invitation to share more fully in his life and love. The primary way that we enact that encounter with Jesus is through the meal that he gave us the night before he died for us, Holy Communion. Through eating the bread and drinking the cup, we “proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (I Cor. 11:26). That is, we are bearing witness to the love shown to us and all the world in his death on the cross until he comes again. The Eucharist is one of the ways that we stay connected with Jesus in these ongoing generations of the life of the Church.
We are in a moment, however, where we have had to set aside gathering at one table, one meal. That raises questions for us as Christians formed and nourished by the Eucharist. One of the great successes of the 1979 Book of Common Prayer was its return to the Eucharist being the norm for public worship on the Lord’s day, recovering ancient practice, commonly in place until the Reformation. That shift, coupled with the formative experience many of us have had in other sacramental traditions, such as Roman Catholicism, certainly make the Eucharist the heart of our Christian worship in today’s Episcopal Church.
The difficulty, of course, is that we do not have a mainstream tradition in Anglicanism nor in our prayer book of encountering Christ in the Eucharist through simply looking upon the consecrated bread and wine, as they often did in medieval Europe. Nor are we well-equipped to implement priests consecrating bread and wine without at least one other person present. Our physical distancing makes all of that more complicated and more important to sort through.
Some of our churches and our people will simply, and properly, lean into our more Reformed side for this period. Returning to Morning Prayer (BCP p. 75 for Rite Two) as a common service is eminently suitable for such a time as this, a service of praise, scripture, and prayer that has deep and powerful roots for us as Anglicans. Or some will simply offer the first portion of the Eucharistic service – the Liturgy of the Word (or Ante-Communion – effectively stopping at the Peace (BCP p. 406-407 gives some instructions). These are good and effective options, to recall the encounter with Christ in Scripture itself and to explore our connection with Christ in common prayer.
Some will want to continue to enjoy some sort of direct use of the Eucharist, however, since it is so central for us, even though now complicated by distance. We can practice a form of Eucharistic worship, though it is a very different experience, and some of our churches are doing this. In places where the priest and people desire to continue in this way, the priest and one other person gather to celebrate Holy Communion. The service ideally is recorded or streamed for others to view. The priest and congregant receive the Sacrament in person – though Bishop Hughes has instructed our clergy that, out of maximum concern, only the clergy may consume from the cup at this time. Both may receive the bread, though, with adequate safe distancing.
Their communion is, effectively, on behalf of all those who wish to receive but cannot, because of our health requirements. Jesus is encountered in the direct reception of Communion; Jesus is also encountered in the life of the person who desires to receive, but cannot. The grace of God is present even so. God is not limited by our distance, our remoteness, our infirmities. In fact, the Book of Common Prayer indirectly provides for this on pg. 457, saying, “If a person desires to receive the Sacrament, but, by reason of extreme sickness or physical disability, is unable to eat and drink the Bread and Wine, the Celebrant is to assure that person that all the benefits of Communion are received, even though the Sacrament is not received with the mouth.” Now, that rubric does not envision our current moment; it is written for those in extreme circumstances physically and is often put to use by clergy visiting gravely ill people in hospitals. Even so, it does yet remind us that the theology of the Eucharist is that God can accomplish more than we can imagine and that God’s desire to provide for us coupled with our desire to receive are the most essential pieces of the Eucharistic encounter with Christ. This is an extraordinary exception to normal Communion in person, but we are in an extraordinary time.
Some refer to this as Spiritual Communion and there are some prayers that talk about this that various people and places have developed and are incorporating, which is fine. The important thing to know is that Jesus seeks us out in our everyday lives, in our moments perhaps of isolation, of anxiety, and shares his love, mercy, and peace with us. We know this through our shared practice of reading Scripture and common prayer. We know this through the Sacrament of Communion, whether in person or at a distance. We have a multitude of ways to let Jesus fill our lives with grace that we may be a blessing to the world.
The important part of all of this is simply to find your way to letting Jesus come, to join you in your ups and downs, and to know that Jesus’ love for you is not tied to where you are or who you are standing next to. And, in God’s time, we will rejoice to gather again, to know the fullness of the Body of Christ in one another. Until then, we read, we pray, and we rejoice that God has loved us so dearly.
