Reserved Sacrament

Today's question is from Todd Bruce, a recently ordained Episcopal priest who is working as an assistant rector in a parish in Kansas City. He writes:

I have a kind of long question that I would like to have your opinion on. We reserve the Sacrament here so that the deacon will be able to take it to people he visits during the week. However, on Sunday mornings, the Sacrament migrates from an aumbry in a chapel that is off of the nave, and not visible from the nave, to a shelf on the wall in the sanctuary.

I am finding, the more I celebrate, that I have a problem with this, and I'm not sure why. My reading of BCP is that the Sacrament is properly not reserved, and the only provisions made for reservation are for the sick (p.396, and that seems to be discouraged in favor of a proper celebration) and for Good Friday. At the same time, the rubrics seem permissive in not forbidding reservation. One priest said that he thought the rubrics about the reserved Sacrament for Good Friday implicitly permit and even assume the reservation of the Sacrament. I not only disagree, but think that the instructions on p.401 ("...after all have received, any of the Sacrament that remains is then consumed."), for the "Order for Celebrating the Holy Eucharist," assume that the Sacrament is reserved only in extraordinary situations. And, of course, though it is only part of a "historical document" informing but not dictating our practice, I keep thinking of Article XXVIII.

Why bring it out on Sunday morning? It seems that one of the "practical" reasons for doing this is in case we run out of consecrated bread and wine. I countered this reason by suggesting that since there is also extra unconsecrated bread and wine, we should use the short form to consecrate additional elements rather than communicate people from reserved Sacrament. In fact, the rubrical instruction (p.365) for what to do if one runs out of consecrated bread and wine is to use the short form. At this point in the discussion, I got the sense that not everyone trusts the validity of the short form. I find myself convinced by [Marion] Hatchett's thoughts on the dynamic nature of the Eucharistic prayers, that the short form is indeed quite valid and preferable to communicating people from the reserved.

What do you think?

Todd

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Todd:

Episcopalians have been debating about the reservation of the sacrament since the immediate post-Civil War years. That was the point when "advanced high-church" Episcopalians re-introduced the practice of reservation of the sacrament, which Anglicans had rejected at the time of the Reformation. The House of Bishops objected to the practice, particularly when connected with Veneration of the elements that had been reserved. The Bishops issued a pastoral letter against "eucharistic adoration" in 1871 and convinced the House of Deputies to amend the canons in 1874 to ban "elevation of the Elements in the Holy Communion in such manner as to expose them to the view of the people as objects toward which adoration is to be made." SeeWhite and Dykman, Annotated Constitution and Canons (1982) 1:442-46 for details. In 1892 the General Convention retained the rubric in the communion office directing that all elements be consumed following communion.

The advanced high-church party was undeterred, however, and continued both to reserve the sacrament and to celebrate the Veneration of the Blessed Sacrament. Bishops in certain dioceses brought clergy to ecclesiastical trial, but they continued the practice anyway. Finally in 1904, the Bishops quit trying to enforce the regulations and the General Convention of 1904 dropped the prohibition from the canons. The 1928 prayer book retained the unenforced rubic calling for consuming all of the elments. As you have noted the prayer book of 1979 revised that rubric by allowing reservation for home communions, but still makes no provision for general reservation.

A basic disagreement about the character of the Eucharist lies behind this debate about resevation. The Reformation point of view is that the Eucharist is an act of proclamation to a group of people. The eucharist is effective, it does convey grace to those who hear the proclamation of the mysteries of faith, but elements have no power outside of that act of proclamation. The 1552 edition of the Book of Common Prayer made that point by forbidding communion unless there were a "good number of communicate with the priest" and a directing that any left over bread be given to the curate "to his own use."

Those who opposed this point of view in the 19th century subscribed to a form of incaranational theology according to which God uses concrete phsyical objects as means of conveying grace. The bread and wine, once altered by the communion, continue to be active agents of grace and were worthy of reservation and veneration. As Peter Brown's Cult of the Saints pointed out, this is a very old way of thinking, one that many christians held by the 3rd and 4th centuries.l

Has anything changed since the debates of the 19th century? Yes, both in terms of practice and scholarship. Among those changes:

• The scholars of the Liturgical Movement, who in large measure provided leadership of the 1979 edition of the Book of Common Prayer, sought to replace a sacramental vision that focused on holy objects with a sacramental view that focused on the community of faith.
  
• Scholars like Byron Stuhlman, Andrew McGowan, and Paul Bradshaw are arguing that the reservation of the sacrament dates right back to the second century and may be earlier than weekday celebrations of the eucharist or even Sunday morning celebrations. Reservations may have played a key role in the transition from an Saturday celebration in the context of an evening meal to the elements only Sunday morning celebration that is standard today.
• The 1979 prayer book simplified the consecration of additional elements, which had to that time required a recitation of the rull eucharistic prayer. There is less practical reason to argue that it is too difficult to consecrate additional elements.
• The Episcopal Church's decision in 1967 to allow lay persons a role in the distribution of the eucharist for the first time opened up the possibility for more home communions for the sick, creating a need for more reserved elements.

All of this said, I think that your instincts are right. The attempt of the revisers of the 1979 prayer book was to steer a middle course between the Reformation No-reserved-sacraments -ever position and the veneration-of-holy-objects position of the advanced high-church party. The 1979 revisers asked utilitarian questions about what best served the worshipping community. They favored a reservation so that the eucharist might be more widely available for the sick and housebound, rather than a reservation for adoration. The kind of questions you are asking, such as why to bring out reserved elements when it is just as efficient to consecrate additional elements, are in keeping with the general direction of the book.

Communion by reservation on Good Friday is an explicit acknowledgement of reserved sacrament, as your colleague argues, but if the current scholarship is right, it is also a remainder of a practice that preceeded morning and weekday celebrations of the eucharist and therefore is only a very imperfect guide for present practice.

One final thought: you are really asking a double question. The first question is about your own understanding of the eucharist and the practices that you will follow when you are rector of a congregation. The second question is about understanding the practice in the parish where you are assisting and where your role is to provide input an ask questions of those who make the decisions, rather than making them yourself. Wise assisting clergy remember that distinction.

Bob