For Article 30 clearly states:
XXX. Of both Kinds.
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.
And no doubt ardent Henry VIII-ites are even now writing to the newspapers in protest at this apparent violation of the Common Law of the Anglican church.
Now sacramental theology can differ quite markedly depending on which brand of Christianity you have been brought up in, and the answer to the question "Can the Sacrament be fully administered in only one kind?" depends entirely on whether you are an Anglican, a Roman Catholic, a Lutheran, or an Eastern Orthodox Christian - and if you are a Roman Catholic, depending also on when you ask, for the Roman Catholic church has changed its mind a few times in the last 2,100 years, according to what those whom it regarded as its enemies in the other Christian communities were up to.
Authority for all sacramental observances has to derive from Scripture, and problems arise only when Scripture is capable of being interpreted in different ways - problems compounded by the possibility that original texts might have been mistranslated.
The following seems to be quite a neat summary of the position. The words are by James Cardinal Gibbons, Archbishop of Baltimore, writing in 1917.
Our Savior gave communion under both forms of bread and wine to His Apostles at the last Supper. Officiating Bishops and Priests are always required, except on Good Friday, to communicate under both kinds. But even the clergy of every rank, including the Pope, receive only of the consecrated bread unless when they celebrate Mass.
The Church teaches that Christ is contained whole and entire under each species; so that whoever communicates under the form of bread or of wine receives not a mutilated Sacrament or a divided Savior, but shares in the whole Sacrament as fully as if he participated in both forms. Hence, the layman who receives the consecrated Bread partakes as copiously of the body and blood of Christ as the officiating Priest who receives both consecrated elements.
Our Lord says: "I am the living bread which came down from Heaven. If any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever; and the bread which I will give is My flesh, for the life of the world. ... He that eateth Me the same also shall live by Me. He that eateth this bread shall live forever." [John vi. 51, and seq.]
From this passage it is evident that whoever partakes of the form of bread partakes of the living flesh of Jesus Christ, which is inseparable from His blood, and which, being now in a glorious state, cannot be divided; for, "Christ rising from the dead, dieth now no more." [Rom. vi. 9.] Our Lord, in His words quoted, makes no reference to the sacramental cup, but only to the Eucharistic bread, to which He ascribes all the efficacy which is attached to communion under both kinds, viz., union with Him, spiritual life, eternal salvation.
St. Paul, writing to the Corinthians, says: "Whosoever shall eat this bread, or drink the chalice of the Lord unworthily, shall be guilty of the body and of the blood of the Lord." [I. Cor. xi. 27.] The Apostle here plainly declares that, by an unworthy participation in the Lord's Supper, under the form of either bread or wine, we profane both the body and the blood of Christ. How could this be so, unless Christ is entirely contained under each species? So forcibly, indeed, did the Apostle assert the Catholic doctrine that the Protestant translators have perverted the text by rendering it: "Whosoever shall eat this bread and drink the chalice," substituting and for or, in contradiction to the Greek original, of which the Catholic version is an exact translation.
It is also the received doctrine of the Fathers that the Eucharist is contained in all its integrity either in the consecrated bread or in the chalice. St. Augustine, who may be taken as a sample of the rest, says that "each one receives Christ the Lord entire under each particle." [Aug. De consec. dist.]
Luther himself, even after his revolt, was so clearly convinced of this truth that he was an uncompromising advocate of communion under one kind. "If any Council," he says, "should decree or permit both species, we would by no means acquiesce; but, in spite of the Council and its statute, we would use one form, or neither, and never both." [De formula Missae.]
Leibnitz, the eminent Protestant divine, observes: "It cannot be denied that Christ is received entire by virtue of concomitance, under each species; nor is His flesh separated from His blood." [Systema Theol., p. 250.]
As the same virtue is contained in the Sacrament, whether administered in one or both forms, the faithful gain nothing by receiving under both kinds, and lose nothing by receiving under one form. Consequently, we nowhere find our Savior requiring the communion to be administered to the faithful under both forms; but He has left this matter to be regulated by the wisdom and discretion of the Church, as He has done with regard to the manner of administering Baptism.
Our Redeemer, it is true, has said: "Drink ye all of this." But it should be remembered that these words were addressed not to the people at large, but only to the Apostles, who alone were also commanded, on the same occasion, to consecrate His body and blood in remembrance of Him. Now we have no more right to infer that the faithful are obliged to drink of the cup, because the Apostles were commanded to drink of it, than we have to suppose that the laity are required or allowed to consecrate the bread and wine, because the power of doing so was at the last Supper conferred on the Apostles.
It is true also that our Lord said to the people: "Unless ye eat the flesh of the Son of man, and drink His blood, ye shall not have life in you." But this command is literally fulfilled by the laity when they partake of the consecrated bread, which, as we have seen, contains Christ the Lord in all His integrity. Hence, if our Savior has said: "Whoso eateth My flesh, and drinketh My blood, hath everlasting life," He has also said, "The bread which I will give is My flesh, for the life of the world."
The swine 'flu epidemic has caused all of us to consider matters of hygiene more carefully, bishops as well as the rest of us. Indeed, the (Roman Catholic) diocese of Plymouth banned the administration of the chalice to the laity three weeks before + Blackburn, and + Chelmsford has told parishes to stop using stoups of water that has been blessed. Sensible precautions, you might think.
So just in case Bishop Nicholas starts getting flak from the red-top papers, whose general idea of news is a photograph of a lady in the buff, and who think that sinners against red-top orthodoxy should be chased from the kingdom, especially if they are paediatricians, can we remember that as Christians we are subject to the discipline of our Church, just as much as monks and nuns in their houses that are both of this world and the next are, and that there is just about as much wisdom and thought to be found in a tabloid newspaper as there is in a cream bun?
A bishop's directive is law to the diocesan clergy, and therefore it is law to the laity. It is not something that PCCs can vote on.
There are two valuable lessons to learn from all this. One: every age reinterprets matters of faith in the light of new knowledge, and Christianity has been remarkably robust in the face of challenges from the secular world following scientific and philosophical advances in understanding. And two: the laity (and the clergy!) don't get burnt at the stake any more for asking awkward questions or expressing unorthodox opinions. Phew.
No comments:
Post a Comment