Prayers and Notices

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I imagine that many of you will have watched the 9am Holy Communion from St Paul’s Church in Dorking for the last few Sundays, just as did I before celebrating the Holy Communion myself on behalf of all in this benefice in the garden of the vicarage at 11am. As a priest, I believe it to be my responsibility to receive on behalf of those who cannot.

And, of course, I realise that there are deep feelings of loss around not being able to physically receive the bread and the wine… I understand this sense of loss completely. And I suspect that many folks that have received the elements dutifully over their lifetimes have been asking how else they might physically partake in the Eucharist.

A note on Spiritual Communion, produced recently by the Church of England, reminds us that “… if we offer ourselves in penitence and faith, giving thanks for the redemption won by Christ crucified, we may truly ‘eat and drink the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ’, although we cannot receive the sacrament physically in ourselves. Making a Spiritual Communion is particularly fitting for those who cannot receive the sacrament at the great feasts of the Church, and it fulfils the duty of receiving Holy Communion ‘regularly, and especially at the festivals of Christmas, Easter and Whitsun or Pentecost’ (Canon B 15).”

In an even more recently penned letter to the clergy, Bishop Jo says this:

… What is going on at a virtual Eucharist is that people are watching a streamed Eucharist – just as with Communion worship broadcast on radio or TV – not participating in it in a technical sense by receiving the elements. It is not a virtual consecration, which is to say that no other bread and wine is consecrated except that which is physically/literally taken, blessed, broken and shared by the priest. So a family that gathers around a screen should not be encouraged to bring their own bread and wine as if it could be consecrated ‘by remote’. (Though we do commend family Agape meals, where bread/wine and other food is shared in the context of worship and prayer – and more obviously, saying ‘grace’ together as an opportunity to raise eyes to heaven at every meal). For those who are watching the Eucharist on their screen, this situation might better be described as a liturgy of spiritual reception. This is what is envisaged in the BCP where for some reason a person can’t get to church to receive the elements. 

Bishop Jo goes on to say:

Spiritual reception has the character of exile, of acknowledging that something is missing - which in this condition of isolation precisely describes what many of us are feeling. I dare to suggest that our appreciation of Communion might be enhanced by the enforced fast that current circumstances demand. Shorn of the gifts, but also distractions, of live encounter, it might focus more explicitly the past and future aspects of the Eucharist. It might bring us to long even more not just for the earthly encounter but for heavenly communion.

And so, on this very different Palm Sunday… I hope that you will join with me and with one another, even if at a physical distance, in the Eucharist at 11am. 

With every blessing,

Derek.