Ask an Anglican: Who May Take Communion

Posted on May 26, 2012 by

This is a question that came in a few months ago but that is perhaps most apt to answer now, given that the General Convention of the Episcopal Church will be taking up the question of Communion without Baptism this July.

Jon writes:

My family is now starting to attend an Anglican church.  My wife communes with me, but I don’t know where she is at with believing/understanding the Real Presence.  The church also allows children to receive Communion and one of my sons received the bread this past Sunday.  I know that none of us can fully “understand” it – but I just wonder if baptized Christians who believe in Christ as their Savior (like my wife) are eating and drinking judgment on themselves for not believing in the Real Presence.

Know Your Catechism, Kids

Many churches practice what is called “fencing the table” or “closed communion,” meaning that only members of the given church body can receive communion. In large measure, this was also the practice of classical Anglicanism. In fact, it predates the Reformation. Archbishop of Canterbury John Peckham decreed in 1281 that no one should receive the sacrament of Holy Communion without first being confirmed. The Reformers continued this practice, enshrining it in the rubric at the end of the Confirmation service in the prayer book that “there shall none be admitted to the holy communion; until suche tyme as he can saye the Catechisme and be confirmed.” The original rubric in 1549 had only required Confirmation itself, but the revised rubric in 1552 and 1559 also required the recitation of the Catechism to make the point that the reason Confirmation was necessary was not because Confirmation somehow magically completed Baptism, as would later be asserted in the nineteenth century, but because Confirmation was a mark that indicated that a person had come to a mature faith. A person who has been through Confirmation has learned and assented to the Church’s teaching about the Christian faith, including the teaching about Communion itself, and so he or she is equipped to actually receive in faith.

Changes to Confirmation

In 1662, the Confirmation service was revised so that the Catechism, previously included within the service in its entirety, was separated out and replaced with a few simple questions. Though confirmands were still expected to know the Catechism, they were no longer required to recite it in its entirety in church. As it stands today, the rubric at the end of the Confirmation liturgy reads, “And there shall none be admitted to the holy Communion, until such time as he be confirmed, or be ready and desirous to be confirmed.” In 1972, this lead the General Synod of the Church of England to authorize a variety of situations in which people who have not been confirmed might receive, including those visiting Anglican churches from other Christian denominations. In 2006, the list was further expanded to include, in some dioceses, children who had not yet been confirmed.

Faith Does Not Live in Our Minds

This shifting practice in the Church of England is not dissimilar to the shifting practice in the Episcopal Church in the United States. The 1979 Book of Common Prayer allowed for the first time for Communion to be given to all Baptized Christians of any denominational background, regardless of their age. Certainly this represents a break with the Reformation tradition and practice, but it also recaptures something of the early Church where Baptism and first Holy Communion were administered at the same time, even to infants. The early Church took the sacraments very seriously, but they also understood that the locus of faith for the Christian is not the intellect.

Holy Baptism gives us the grace that leads to true faith and true repentance, but who is to say that a six-year-old has less faith and less repentance than a sixteen-year-old or a sixty-year-old? These are gifts from God, not ideas that we memorize or attitudes that we conjure up in ourselves. This does not excuse the Church from the practice of good catechesis. In fact, the best criticism that can be made of what the Episcopal Church has done is to note the way in which the classic Catechism has been sidelined (which is a topic worthy of its own post). Nevertheless, if we are going to take seriously what Scripture and the Fathers say to us about Baptism, we have no really compelling reason not to give Holy Communion to children. And once that rubicon has been crossed, it becomes very difficult to argue that people who visit from other churches must have a perfect understanding of the Real Presence before they can come to the table.

Discerning the Body

That said, Paul cautions us in 1 Corinthians 11:26-30:

For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. Whoever, therefore, eats the bread or drinks the cup of the Lord in an unworthy manner will be guilty concerning the body and blood of the Lord. Let a person examine himself, then, and so eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For anyone who eats and drinks without discerning the body eats and drinks judgment on himself. That is why many of you are weak and ill, and some have died.

If we are to discern the Body when we come to the Eucharist, are we not putting people in danger by allowing them to receive if they do not believe in the Real Presence? In a certain sense, perhaps, we are, but this could be applied equally to the members of our own churches whose minds and hearts are not known at all times to the pastor. It is significant here that Paul’s admonition is given not to priests to examine their parishioners but to the parishioners themselves. Priests are certainly called to shepherd their people, and there are times when that shepherding means telling someone not to receive until he or she has come to faith or has abandoned a particularly wicked practice. Still, each Christian is also called to make inquiry of themselves and to only come forward when prepared. It is significant that in the Episcopal Church we invite all Baptized Christians and not merely all people who happen to have been baptized. If you do not believe in Jesus Christ, if you have rejected the faith, then you should not come forward, which is exactly what the prayer book Exhortation calls upon us to say. It is as simple as that.

Furthermore, in allowing that anyone who is a baptized Christian may receive, we assume a common understanding of what it means to be a Christian. As Anglicans have received the faith, part of that understanding is the role and place of the sacraments. This is perhaps where the modern practice is at its most dangerous, given how weak catechesis is around these issues. We do not have a good way of explaining what we mean by a Christian in the soundbyte moment before the Eucharistic prayer begins. It takes only a moment to say “Only confirmed members of the Episcopal Church may receive” or “All baptized Christians may receive.” It takes significantly more time to say, “All baptized Christians may receive, and by a Christian we mean someone who has come to have faith in the Trinitarian God of the Bible and the saving work of Jesus Christ; and that same Jesus has told us that we truly receive His Body and Blood in this sacrament and that it is more than just a sign; and if you don’t believe that, you may want to ask yourself what else He has said that you aren’t willing to accept.”

However, a person who comes forward to receive Communion who truly has faith in Christ is not in a tremendous amount of danger unless he or she has explicitly, willfully, and consistently rejected the teaching of Our Lord about the sacraments to the point that it would be of no consequence to step on the consecrated bread or toss the wine in a ditch. Remember, the issue for Paul was not just that the Corinthians did not fully grasp the doctrine of the Real Presence, but that the Corinthians were treating the Lord’s Supper as if it were just like any other meal, acting like drunken idiots, pretending the whole thing was of no more importance than a frat party. Paul’s concern was that if people did not understand that Christ was truly present, they would continue not to take the Supper seriously and would continue to blaspheme, sparking the Lord’s wrath against them. While it is better to receive with a proper understanding than without, most Christians, even with a defective eucharistic theology, are in little danger of dismissing the whole thing as meaningless.

Communion Without Baptism

It is helpful to remember these admonitions of Paul in light of the ongoing controversy over Communion without Baptism. While there may be good and bad arguments about whether or not to confirm a person before giving him or her Communion, the only grounding upon which to give Communion to the unbaptized is if we do not take Paul’s words all that seriously. A person who has not been baptized is in no position to make any kind of discernment about Christ, one way or another, even in their hearts, and so it becomes a kind of blasphemy to commune them, not because we are any better than they are but because we are clearly worse since we have been catechized and yet take the sacrament with so little seriousness.

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Anglican Shorts: Why We Need Bishops

Posted on May 13, 2012 by
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Anglican Shorts: The Gospel in 5 Minutes or Less

Posted on May 3, 2012 by

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The Conciliar Anglican is Now “Likable”

Posted on April 30, 2012 by

Well, I hope The Conciliar Anglican has always been likable, maybe even lovable, but now you can officially “like” The Conciliar Anglican on Facebook. Go here and show some love.

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Anglican Shorts: What is an Anglican?

Posted on April 27, 2012 by

Check out the first in a new series of short videos on the basics of Anglicanism. These videos are made to be seen both by Anglicans and by those who want to know more about what classical Anglicanism is, so share them with your friends!

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On The Eucharist: Why We Need a Presbyter at the Altar

Posted on April 15, 2012 by

The Rev. John Richardson, who blogs at The Ugley Vicar, recently wrote a post arguing, somewhat cautiously, for the Church of England to consider allowing lay people to preside at the Eucharist. Richardson is a very interesting blogger. His perspective often differs from mine, but he is usually well worth a read. In a follow-up post, he invites people to respond to his argument for lay presidency. So, though it comes as something of an aside in this larger series on the Anglican doctrine of the Eucharist, I thought I might give it a go.

Richardson’s argument appears to be that a kind of controlled lay presidency, in which certain lay people who have studied theology would be licensed to preside at the altar, would give the efforts of the Church of England at evangelization a shot in the arm. His position is bolstered by an argument for the equality of all Christians within the “priesthood of all believers”:

It has always seemed to me that the best argument for ‘priests, and priests only’ is the Roman (and Anglo) Catholic one: that priests are different in kind and can do different stuff. Once, however, you accept the notion of the ‘priesthood of all believers’, then rationalizations of the ‘priests only’ rule begin to look just like that.

The phrase “priesthood of all believers” is not found in scripture, but the general concept comes from 1 Peter 2 and a few similar passages. Peter says, “As you come to him, a living stone rejected by men but in the sight of God chosen and precious, you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (verses 4-5). All Christians, including Roman Catholics and Anglo-Catholics, accept this. It is a basic Christian tenet. As those who have been united with Christ through Baptism, we are united with Him in every facet of His humanity. We are united to His crucifixion and His resurrection, as Paul explains in Romans 6. We are also united to His priesthood. Unlike the priests of an earlier era who needed to make sacrifices for their own sins as well as those of the people they served, we now have a great High Priest who never knew sin and who can, thus, make a single sacrifice that atones for all sin for all time (Hebrews 5:1-10). And in as much as we are one with Jesus, we too are priests. We too can, in this limited way, offer spiritual sacrifices, which is why, in the prayer book liturgy, we “offer ourselves to be a reasonable, holy, and living sacrifice unto thee.” We do this not under the strength of our own priesthood, but united under His.

Nevertheless, the Church has always set aside men to carry on the ministry of Christ to His people. This setting aside is itself begun by Christ when He breathes on His apostles, giving them the Holy Spirit and the ministry of forgiving sins (John 20). The Reformers often referred to this as the “pastoral office” or the “ministry of the keys,” after Jesus’ charge to Peter in Matthew 16:19 that He would give Peter “the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven.” Rome has infamously asserted that this passage endorses the papacy since the keys are received by Peter, but the Fathers tend to argue differently, that Peter received the keys on behalf of the apostles and thus all bishops are in some sense successors of Peter. Either way, though, the contention that Richardson is making only makes sense if the pastoral office is not a separate office that men are called into by God but simply a role that any Christian can fulfill for any other Christian at any given time. A church having a pastor, then, is a convenience but not a necessity.

Richardson characterizes this as a Catholic vs. Protestant division, but it need not be. You do not need to believe in the Roman Catholic notion of ontological change at ordination—that the person ordained is irrevocably transformed into something different, imbued with a special marking at the level of his being—in order to argue that lay presidency runs counter to a biblical worldview. I use the word “presbyter” in the title of this post for precisely this reason. Even if you are uncomfortable with the sacerdotal implications of the term “priest,” you can still affirm the notion that it is only appropriate for those who have been properly called and ordained to be carrying out pastoral duties within the Church. And if sharing the Lord’s Supper is not a prime pastoral duty, I do not know what is.

Martin Luther and the Pastoral Office

In defense of his position, Richardson cites Martin Luther’s address to the Prague Senate, Concerning the Ministry, in which he says, among other things, that even women exercise a priestly ministry when they baptize, “for it is the greatest office in the church — the proclamation of the Word of God.” It is interesting to see Richardson make rhetorical use of this line from Luther since Richardson has become known through his association with Reform to be an avid opponent of women’s ordination. That said, what is most telling about this particular quotation is what Richardson does not include. Luther argues in this address, largely as a matter of rhetoric against papal ordination, that the power and authority of the ministry of the keys is shared by all Christians who may claim it as a right. Yet Luther simultaneously discourages lay Christians from acting on that right because the wider community has an even greater right to receive the Gospel by way of the pastoral office:

The community rights demand that one, or as many as the community chooses, shall be chosen or approved who, in the name of all with these rights, shall perform these functions publicly. Otherwise, there might be shameful confusion among the people of God, and a kind of Babylon in the church, where everything should be done in order, as the Apostle teaches [I Cor. 14:40]. For it is one thing to exercise a right publicly; another to use it in time of emergency. Publicly one may not exercise a right without consent of the whole body or of the church. In time of emergency each may use it as he deems best.

This is consonant with the Augsburg Confession which says that God instituted the ministry for the sake of passing on the Gospel and building the faith (Article V) and that “no one should publicly teach in the Church or administer the Sacraments unless he be regularly called” (Article XIV). Here we have exactly what Richardson has said does not exist, a purely Protestant argument which accepts the priesthood of all believers but still countenances the need for the Church to maintain an ordained ministry with normative authority over the administration of the sacraments.

Episcopal Exceptionalism

A much stronger case can be made, however, from a purely Anglican perspective. While Richardson makes the claim that Thomas Cranmer was in favor of a sort of lay presidency—a claim which I would be interested to see substantiated—it has to be acknowledged that our authoritative formularies leave no room for such a possibility. Article XXIII tells us that “It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of public preaching, or ministering the Sacraments in the Congregation, before he be lawfully called, and sent to execute the same. And those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent, which be chosen and called to this work by men who have public authority given unto them in the Congregation, to call and send Ministers into the Lord’s vineyard.” The manner of this calling is clearly ordination, which Article XXXVII affirms as being after the manner found in the ordinal. And, of course, in the Ordinal we find that “No man shall be accounted or taken to be a lawful Bishop, Priest, or Deacon in the Church of England, or suffered to execute any of the said functions, except he be called, tried, examined, and admitted thereunto, according to the Form hereafter following, or hath had formerly Episcopal Consecration or Ordination.” Not only is it necessary for the man presiding at the altar to be one set apart for ministry, he must specifically be set aside for ministry by the ordination of a bishop.

Why is this necessary? Because the presbyter stands in the place of Christ amongst the people, receiving from God that which we need and giving to us the same. That is his office, which is to say nothing of his person. This is not a question of validity. It is a reasonably open question whether a Eucharist celebrated by a lay person would truly confer to the faithful the same Body and Blood of Our Lord as a Eucharist administered by a priest. Luther seems to think it would. But that is beside the point, both for Luther and for us. The question is not what is possible under duress. The question is what is appropriate and in the best interest of the Body of Christ. Given how muddied the understanding of the relationship between pastor and people has already largely become, a move towards regularized lay presidency would only further serve to disconnect people from the Gospel. The Augsburg Confession rightly points out that the ordained ministry was established by Christ Himself, given as a gift through which we may hear the Word preached and be drawn to faith. If God calls certain men to carry out this ministry, then it may just be possible for us to receive God’s Word in the way that God intends for us to receive it. But if suddenly every man becomes his own pastor, than the Word is heard by nobody. The ensuing chaos in the Anglican Communion if lay presidency were to become commonplace would make the last ten years seem like a day at the beach.

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If I Were Archbishop of Canterbury

Posted on April 1, 2012 by

This video came about as a response to a recent post by Peter Carrell called “If You Were the Next ABC, What Would You Do?” over on Anglican Down Under. Worth a look if you haven’t yet read it. My answer to Peter’s question is in the video. What’s yours? Feel free to comment and share.

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Creationism and Talking Cats

Posted on March 24, 2012 by

Answering a question about whether or not we need to read Genesis 1 and 2 “literally.”

My apologies to those of you in the UK and Ireland who cannot see this because of your country’s draconian copyright laws.

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On The Eucharist: Defanging the Black Rubric

Posted on March 21, 2012 by

It has to be acknowledged up front that the Black Rubric is an embarrassment. At best, it is an unclear statement of a partial truth about the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist. At worst, it is an out and out denial of the Real Presence that was grandfathered into the prayer book for reasons of political expediency rather than theological clarity. Nevertheless, it needs to be examined by those who wish to embrace classical Anglicanism, not just because it is a part of Anglican history, but also because, seen from the proper perspective, it sheds light on the very thing that it attempts to darken, the Anglican view of Christ’s presence in the sacrament.

Ye Olde Anglican Fudge

The Black Rubric, so called because it was accidentally printed in black rather than in the customary red, was an addition to the Book of Common Prayer in 1552, largely at the demand of the growing Calvinist party in the Church of England. It reads as follows (with translation):

Although no order can be so perfectly devised, but it may be of some, either for their ignorance and infirmity, or else of malice and obstinacy, misconstrued, depraved, and interpreted in a wrong part: And yet because brotherly charity willeth, that so much as conveniently may be, offences should be taken away: therefore we willing to do the same. Whereas it is ordained in the book of common prayer, in the administration of the Lord’s Supper, that the Communicants kneeling should receive the holy Communion, which thing being well meant, for a signification of the humble and grateful acknowledging of the benefits of Christ, given unto the worthy receiver, and to avoid the profanation and disorder, which about the holy Communion might else ensue: Lest yet the same kneeling might be thought or taken otherwise, we do declare that it is not meant thereby that any adoration is done, or ought to be done, either unto the Sacramental bread or wine there bodily received, or unto any real and essential presence there being of Christ’s natural flesh and blood. For as concerning the Sacramental bread and wine, they remain still in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored, for that were Idolatry to be abhorred of all faithful Christians. And as concerning the natural body and blood of our savior Christ, they are in heaven and not here. For it is against the truth of Christ’s true natural body, to be in more places than in one, at one time.

This rubric attempts to wrap a Calvinist interpretation of the Eucharist in Catholic ceremonial, arguing that the fact that the people are instructed to kneel for Communion should not be taken to mean that Christ is locally present in the bread and wine. It was the sort of thing that we imagine today as being typically Anglican, the great theological fudge that leaves no one happy. Those who wanted to maintain a more Catholic understanding of the sacrament were appalled at the way that this language strips away the Real Presence from the elements. But the Reformers who held to a more Zwinglian understanding were not appeased either, both because the ritual of kneeling still remained and because the rubric did not deny the Real Presence altogether but merely the Real Presence in the elements. Rather, the rubric expressed the Calvinist understanding that in the Eucharist true believers are swept up into heaven to feast on Christ’s Body and Blood. Even this was a bridge too far for the Zwinglians.

The Classical Anglican Rejection of the Black Rubric

The original rubric had a short lifespan. In 1553, less than a year after the promulgation of the second prayer book, Queen Mary took the throne and the Church of England swung back towards Rome. As I have argued here before, this volatile period prior to the Elizabethan Settlement represents something of the birth pangs of Anglicanism, but what we call classical Anglicanism today only really takes shape after Elizabeth becomes queen. The 1559 Book of Common Prayer is based largely on 1552 but with some careful additions and subtractions. These changes were specifically designed to remove any doubt that the teaching of Anglicanism is that Christ is truly present in the Eucharist, spiritually and yet also locally, in and with the bread and wine. To that end, the Black Rubric was removed and relegated to the dust bin of history, where it remained for more than a century.

The rejection of the Black Rubric by the Elizabethan Settlement should not be misinterpreted as an overall rejection of Calvinist Eucharistic doctrine. On the contrary, as we have seen, Calvin’s understanding of the spiritual reality of the Resurrected Body and the need for communicants to have faith to properly receive Eucharistic grace are inherent in Anglican teaching. Moreover, Calvin’s sense that in our celebration of the Eucharist on earth we are lifted up into heaven is reflected in the Sursom Corda – “Lift up your hearts / We lift them up unto the Lord.” Nevertheless, Anglican Eucharistic doctrine is not purely Calvinist but retains a sense of the local, tangible reality of Christ in the sacrament that is characteristic of both Catholic and Lutheran doctrine. The consecrated bread and wine really are the Body and Blood of Christ and not merely symbols of something going on elsewhere. The removal of the Black Rubric from the classic prayer book is a sign of the way in which Anglicanism sought to chart a different, more faithfully patristic course.

The Empire Strikes Black

The Black Rubric returned to the prayer book in 1662. England had been ripped apart by the Civil War and the period of the Commonwealth which followed. Upon the restoration of the monarchy and consequently of Anglicanism, there was a spirit and a hope in the nation that reconciliation between Anglicans and Puritans (who held largely to the Zwinglian position) could be forged in a new revision of the Book of Common Prayer. For the most part, however, this was not to be the case. All the major revisions in the 1662 prayer book–the restoration of prayers for the dead, the strengthening of the distinction between the three orders in the ordination rites, the rubric for manual acts at the celebration of the Eucharist, etc.–highlighted the historic and Catholic character of Anglicanism and rejected the novelty of Puritanism. The one exception is the return of the Black Rubric, which seems to have been added in the hopes that it would appease the Puritans. While in general, the revisions of 1662 enhanced the Anglican teaching that the presence of Christ in the Eucharist is both spiritual and local, the return of the Black Rubric added a sharp note of discord in what was otherwise straightforward and clear.

The Black Rubric Re-Interpreted

And yet, the Black Rubric that returned to the prayer book in 1662 was not the same as what was removed in 1559:

WHEREAS it is ordained in this Office for the Administration of the Lord’s Supper, that the Communicants should receive the same kneeling; (which order is well meant, for a signification of our humble and grateful acknowledgment of the benefits of Christ therein given to all worthy Receivers, and for the avoiding of such profanation and disorder in the holy Communion, as might otherwise ensue;) yet, lest the same kneeling should by any persons, either out of ignorance and infirmity, or out of malice and obstinacy, be misconstrued and depraved: It is hereby declared, That thereby no adoration is intended, or ought to be done, either unto the Sacramental Bread or Wine there bodily received, or unto any Corporal Presence of Christ’s natural Flesh and Blood. For the Sacramental Bread and Wine remain still in their very natural substances, and therefore may not be adored; (for that were Idolatry, to be abhorred of all faithful Christians;) and the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ are in Heaven, and not here; it being against the truth of Christ’s natural Body to be at one time in more places than one.

The word “corporal” replaced the words “real and essential.” The difference is an important one. Denying any “real and essential presence” in the elements means that the elements are just symbols and that they are thereby rendered almost accidental and unimportant to what is really going on in the Eucharist. Taken to its extreme, this view becomes Gnostic, denying the importance of the body and rejecting the physical world in favor of some sort of secret, intangible reality. However, denying any “corporal presence” in the bread and wine serves only to underline the Anglican, patristic, biblical teaching that the presence of Christ in the sacrament is spiritual because the Resurrection Body is a spiritual Body. It also further emphasizes that, unlike the Roman Catholic teaching of transubstantiation, as Anglicans we are allowed to acknowledge that the sacramental bread and wine are still bread and wine even as they are also the Body and Blood of Christ. Taken in this light, the rubric can be seen as an explanation that we do not worship or adore bread and wine even as we worship and adore the true Body and Blood of our Savior that comes to us in, with, and through bread and wine.

None of this is to say, however, that the Black Rubric, even as revised, does much good. It is largely confusing and adds little to what the prayer book so eloquently expresses through the liturgy. Though the prayer books that exist around the Anglican Communion today are largely patterned off of the 1662 prayer book, almost none of them have retained the Black Rubric. Queen Elizabeth I would be appalled to find that the rubric she personally lobbied to excise had found its way back. If the Church of England is ever able to revise the prayer book again, the removal of the Black Rubric should be at the top of the list of priorities.

Be Not Afraid

That said, even as it stands, the Black Rubric as revised does not overthrow or undo the teaching of Anglicanism about the sacrament. Understanding the history helps us to be prepared, as Anglicans, to answer the objections of both Zwinglians inside the Church today who want to stake their historical claim and those outside the Communion, such as confessional Lutherans, Roman Catholics, and Eastern Orthodox, who occasionally try to use the existence of the Black Rubric as an example of why Anglicanism’s commitment to the teaching of the Real Presence is questionable. Taken in its proper context, while the rubric remains unhelpful, we need not hide in shame from it. The teaching of classical Anglicanism, from the Elizabethan Settlement to the present day, is consistently a teaching of the Real Presence. Far from denying this, the history of the Black Rubric confirms it.

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On The Eucharist: Spiritual Food Is Real Food

Posted on March 10, 2012 by

One of the more remarkable features of the classic Anglican Eucharistic rite, often omitted from modern prayer books, is the Exhortation that the priest gives to encourage people to receive the sacrament in a worthy manner. The Exhortation comes just before the call to Confession and in its various forms (there are three options) it includes clearly articulated language about both the great benefits and dangers of receiving Holy Communion:

DEARLY beloved in the Lord, ye that mind to come to the holy Communion of the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ, must consider how Saint Paul exhorteth all persons diligently to try and examine themselves, before they presume to eat of that Bread, and drink of that Cup. For as the benefit is great, if with a true penitent heart and lively faith we receive that holy Sacrament; (for then we spiritually eat the flesh of Christ, and drink his blood; then we dwell in Christ, and Christ in us; we are one with Christ, and Christ with us;) so is the danger great, if we receive the same unworthily. For then we are guilty of the Body and Blood of Christ our Saviour; we eat and drink our own damnation, not considering the Lord’s Body; we kindle God’s wrath against us…

The benefit of the sacrament is that we “spiritually eat the flesh of Christ, and drink His blood” which makes us one with Christ. There is a hint here of what the Eastern Orthodox call the doctrine of theosis, the idea that our sanctification is brought about by our being united with Christ and made one with Him so that Christ shines through us and we take on His characteristics, much the same way that a blade that has been placed in a fire will glow with warmth even after it is pulled out. This is echoed in the prayer of humble access in which we pray that God will allow us “so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ, and to drink his blood, that our sinful bodies may be made clean by his body, and our souls washed through his most precious blood, and that we may evermore dwell in him, and he in us.” There is a cleansing that takes place in the Eucharist, just as there is in Baptism, but the effect of that cleansing is amplified. Through the Eucharist, we are made to dwell with God, not just in His presence, but as a part of Him, just as He is in us. When God came to rescue us from sin and death, He made Himself like us by taking on our flesh. In the Eucharist, this action is reversed. We are lifted up into Him, being made one with Him in our spirit.

Objections to Spiritual Eating

The Exhortation describes the act of partaking in the sacrament as a “spiritual” eating of Christ’s flesh. This language is repeated in the post-communion prayer which includes a thanksgiving to God for giving us “the spiritual food of the most precious Body and Blood of thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ.” Critics sometimes assert that this means that Anglicanism holds a purely memorialist understanding of the sacrament since that which is spiritual must clearly be at odds with that which is material. This assumption is further bolstered by the fact that the rite emphasizes over and over again the need to receive the sacrament in faith because it is only by faith that we actually receive the benefits promised in the sacrament. Therefore, critics conclude, we are not talking about a real, objective presence of Christ in the sacrament. The presence of Christ is dependent on the mind-set of the believer. All that the individual communicant receives in his or her mouth is bread and wine, since the physical elements undergo no change. If the communicant has faith, the communicant will also be given Christ’s Body and Blood to feed on in his or her heart. But if the communicant does not have faith, he or she will receive only bread and wine and not Christ. The grace of the sacrament, therefore, is dependent on us rather than on God.

Response to Objections

The problem with this line of criticism is that it ignores some fairly significant parts of the rite that indicate that Christ’s presence is not dependent on us at all. First, as we see above in the Exhortation, there is an acknowledgement that by receiving the sacrament without faith we “eat and drink our own damnation.” As we discussed in the previous article, this admonition comes from 1 Corinthians 11. If there is no real and objective presence of Christ in the sacrament, it is difficult to understand how or why reception of it by a non-believer would injure that person so drastically.

More to the point, however, is the sentence of administration. In Cranmer’s first prayer book in 1549, the priest administered the bread with the words, “The Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ which was given for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life.” In the 1552 revision, under the influence of a much more Zwinglian spirit, the words were changed to reflect a purely memorialist understanding of the sacrament. The priest placed the bread in the communicant’s hands saying, “Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ died for thee and be thankful.” But in 1559 and ever after, the 1549 language was restored so that both sentences are said together. The memorialist language of the second sentence remains true no matter how one conceives of the presence of Christ in the sacrament. However, the language of the first sentence definitively asserts the real and objective presence of Christ, not just in the heart and mind of the believer but also in the bread and wine. If the bread is not really the Body of Christ and the wine is not really the Blood of Christ, the priest is rendered a liar and the rite becomes internally incoherent.

So then, “spiritual food” and “spiritual feeding” cannot be interpreted to mean that there is no local presence of Christ in the sacrament at all. The spiritual reality of how we receive is not in contradiction with the objective and even the material reality of how Christ gives Himself to us in the sacrament. Rather, it is precisely the coming together of the spiritual and the material that results in our ability, as creatures who are both spiritual and physical, to feed on Christ and receive the benefits of His passion.

Resurrected Bodies are Spiritual Bodies

The problem for many of us in grasping this is that we have been formed in a secular culture and sometimes even in a church culture that embraces the Gnostic idea that the spirit and the flesh are two radically different things that are necessarily opposed to one another. And since our era is dominated by materialism which brashly asserts that only the things we can quantify with our senses are real, we come to believe that the spiritual is somehow less real than the physical. But if that were the case, God would be less real than rocks since rocks are pure matter and, as John 4:24 tells us, God is pure spirit. Rather, as Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15, that which is spiritual is that which is beyond the power of sin and death:

Someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” You foolish person! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And what you sow is not the body that is to be, but a bare kernel, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body… So is it with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable; what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor; it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness; it is raised in power. It is sown a natural body; it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a natural body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man Adam became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit.  But it is not the spiritual that is first but the natural, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so also are those who are of the dust, and as is the man of heaven, so also are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we shall also bear the image of the man of heaven…

Christ Himself as a resurrected man is now “life-giving spirit,” and yet He has not ceased to also be human. On the contrary, the spiritual nature of His Body makes Him more human. While Adam is just dust, Christ is much more because His body has become spiritual. In the resurrection, the very material that makes us up will have the transcendent qualities that now are only the property of the spirit. The material will no longer be separable from the spiritual. All will be fully integrated. All will be made whole.

Nevertheless, while Christ has already gone through this change, we who have been baptized into Christ remain stuck between two worlds. We have been regenerated and given the Holy Spirit, which means that our souls have been cleansed of sin and brought back to life, and yet we remain in the fallen world in which we continue to have to face the reality of decay and death. And that reality has a hold on us, dragging us into sin over and over again, leaving its mark upon our flesh. It is only if our souls have been washed clean by the washing of Baptism and faith has been kindled in our hearts that we have a hope of feeding upon the Resurrected Body of Our Lord which is now fully glorified and no longer subject to death’s influence. That does not mean that Christ is not objectively, fully, even materially present when the bread and wine are placed in our mouths. But it does mean that if we are to actually receive in any way the benefit of such a gift, we must have spirits that have been reborn and cleansed of sin. It is not enough simply to receive with the mouth if the heart remains unmoved.

You Are What You Are Able to Eat

A crude example will perhaps serve to draw the distinction more clearly. I have a medical condition which prevents me from digesting certain foods properly, including pineapples. Now, this is a shame because I really like pineapples. If a piece of pineapple was placed in my hands right this second, it would certainly be objectively a pineapple. I could chew it up and swallow it and I would have taken pineapple into myself. Nevertheless, because my body is flawed in such a way that I cannot digest the pineapple properly, I will not actually be able to feed on it. I will not be able to gather from it nutrition. In fact, I may very well have a negative reaction, which in my case would cause me to wake up in the middle of the night gasping for breath. I am not equipped in my person to feed on pineapple, even if I were to receive it.

The Body and Blood of Christ that comes to us in and through the consecrated bread and wine is a glorified body, a spiritual body. It requires a glorified spirit to be able to properly receive it and feed on it. But that does not mean that Christ is not really, truly present, in an objective way, by His own free gift of Himself. The spiritual nature of the Body does not make the Body any less of a real Body. Nor does our need to feed spiritually, through faith, make any difference in the reality of the gift that is given in the sacrament.

Spiritual food is real food. There is only one way to eat it and only one chef who prepares it. Blessed are we to be called to keep the feast.

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