"The Cup of the Lord": the sign and gift of communion in both kinds (Article XXX)

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.

by Laudable Practice

A dead letter?

Surely it is a dead letter. Is there any meaningful sense in which Article XXX has contemporary relevance? After all, the Catechism of the Catholic Church declares:

the sign of communion is more complete when given under both kinds, since in that form the sign of the Eucharistic meal appears more clearly[1].

Similarly, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal states of communion in both kinds:

this clearer form of the sacramental sign offers a particular opportunity of deepening the understanding of the mystery in which the faithful take part[2].

It is thus, perhaps, unsurprising that the ARCIC I Agreed Statement on Eucharistic Doctrine made no reference to the historic division, instead seemingly assuming that communion in both kinds would be normative in both Anglican and Roman traditions:

in and by his sacramental presence given through bread and wine, the crucified and risen Lord, according to his promise, offers himself to his people[3].

Despite such welcome signs of convergence in Eucharistic doctrine and practice, however, a note of caution is appropriate. The Catechism of the Catholic Church also affirms the practice of communion in one kind:

For pastoral reasons this manner of receiving communion has been legitimately established as the most common form in the Latin rite.[4]

It does indeed certainly continue as a "common form" in the Roman tradition. What is more, since Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio ‘Summorum Pontificum,’ the increase in provision of Mass in the Extraordinary Form has also led to a renewed practice of communion in one kind. For example, the ‘Guidelines for the Reception of Communion during the extraordinary form of the Mass,’ issued by the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference, state:

Communion is received under one kind only, to emphasise the Church’s teaching that Christ is received whole and entire under the appearance of bread or wine[5].

The Chair of the Latin Mass Society in the UK has also emphasised how receiving in both kinds is incompatible with the Extraordinary Form:

Introduction into the Extraordinary Form of the distribution of the Chalice to the Faithful would create both a practical and theological dissonance in this Form of the Roman Rite[6].

Mindful of the thankfully transformed ecumenical context, in which Anglicans and Roman Catholics frequently attend Eucharistic celebrations in each other’s tradition, of the Anglican commitment to Eucharistic hospitality to those baptised in the name of the Holy Trinity, and of the welcome and support to be given to inter-church families, there is good reason for Anglicans to receive afresh the teaching of Article XXX in order to encourage a more vibrant catechesis concerning the gift of communion in both kinds.

Given

That said, the ecumenical context alone does not determine the significance of this Article for contemporary Anglicanism. Article XXX also provides a means of more generally deepening Anglican eucharistic teaching and devotion. In The Apology of the Church of England, Jewel emphasises how the restoration of communion in both kinds was a renewal of a dominical gift, witnessed to in the faith and practice of the apostolic and patristic churches:

Moreover, when the people cometh to the Holy Communion, the Sacrament ought to be given them in both kinds: for so both Christ hath commanded, and the Apostles in every place have ordained, and all the ancient fathers and Catholic bishops have followed the same. And whoso doth contrary to this, he (as Gelasius saith) committeth sacrilege[7].

A similar emphasis is found in the Book of Homilies:

This we must be sure of especially, that this supper be in such wise done and ministered, as our Lord and saviour did, and commanded to be done, as his holy apostles used it, and the good fathers in the primitive church frequented it[8].

The language of the Article itself – "the Lord’s sacrament," Dominici sacramenti – powerfully captures this understanding that the Eucharist is the Lord’s gift to the Church, "Christ’s ordinance," not ours. In the words of the 1662 Book of Common Prayer, "he hath instituted and ordained holy mysteries"[9]. Fidelity to the practice of communion in both kinds embodies this truth and is the means of our participation in it. We receive in both kinds because the Lord said "Drink ye all of this." It is the gift of the Lord, which we receive. Communion in both kinds, therefore, brings us close to the heart of the sacramental economy, the sacraments as sign and gift given and bestowed by the Incarnate Word:

Who hath ordained the Sacraments?  Not any Prelate, not any Prince, not any Angel, or Archangel, but only God himself.  For, he only hath authority to seal the charter, in whose authority only it is to grant it.  And only he giveth the pledge, and confirmeth his grace to us, which giveth his grace into our hearts[10]. 

As a renewal of apostolic and patristic practice, communion in both kinds also conforms us to the witness and teaching of the Great Tradition, in particular that of the churches of the Latin West prior to the disordering of eucharistic practice through late medieval innovations[11]. The fact that Jewel quotes Gelasius, a 5^th century bishop of Rome, regarding communion in both kinds, is particularly indicative of this. This is part of a pattern in which he invokes "bishops of Rome in the primitive Church" against a range of late medieval Latin eucharistic practices. Article XXX and the practice of communion in both kinds manifests the continuity of Anglicanism with the Eucharistic faith of the "Catholick and Apostolick Church," not as sufficient condition for such continuity, but as a required condition: what Ambrose or Augustine would recognise as basic Eucharistic practice.

Sacrifice

Classical Anglican critique of communion in one kind drew attention to how it disrupted the sacramental sign. The Homily on the Sacrament warned that "the author" of the sacrament must be heeded, "lest, of two parts, we have but one." Jeremy Taylor similarly urged against going "from receiving the whole Sacrament to receive it but half"[12]. This continues to have relevance in a contemporary Anglican context in which the Eucharist as fellowship meal, rather than the "Sacrament of our redemption by Christ’s death"[13], can be evident, a fruit of the "shallow and romantic sort of Pelagianism" which Michael Ramsey perceived in aspects the Parish Communion movement[14].

There is why attention should be given to the particular significance in the relationship between "The Cup of the Lord" and the Eucharist setting before us "the merits and death of thy Son Jesus Christ"[15], "the merits of the most precious death and passion of thy dear Son"[16]. In the words of Jeremy Taylor:

Whatsoever the Spirit can convey to the body of the church, we may expect from this sacrament; for as the Spirit of Christ is the instrument of life and action, so the blood of Christ is the conveyance of His Spirit[17].

Partaking of the Cup – "his blood in the Sacrament of Wine"[18] – in a particular manner sets before us the Lord’s sacrifice, recalled in the Eucharist as "commemorating rite and representment"[19]. As Fleming Rutledge states with admirable clarity:

The use of the phrase "blood of Christ" in the New Testament carries with it this sacrificial, atoning significance in a primordial sense; we cannot root out these connections even if we want to[20].

This is evident in the third Exhortation in the 1662 rite:

the innumerable benefits which by his precious blood-shedding he hath obtained to us.

It is, however, in the the words of administration for the Cup in the classical Prayer Book tradition that the particular relationship between the Cup and the sacrificial commemoration of the Eucharist is given most its profound and beautiful expression:

The Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ, which was shed for thee, preserve thy body and soul unto everlasting life: Drink this in remembrance that Christ’s Blood was shed for thee, and be thankful.

The repetition of "shed for thee," rather than being awkward and unnecessary, is an almost poetic device unfolding to the communicant the assurance of the tender mercy poured out in and through "the death of Christ, and of the benefits which we receive thereby"[21].

To partake of "The Cup of the Lord," then, is to encounter the gift and reality that the Eucharist is "not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another," for "the Cup of Blessing is a partaking of the Blood of Christ"[22]. That "primordial sense" referred to by Rutledge is presented to our senses, is tasted by us, the effectual sign of the fruit of sacrifice made present in the Eucharist:

Who knows not Love, let him assay
And taste that juice, which on the cross a pike
Did set again abroach, then let him say
If ever he did taste the like.
Love is that liquor sweet and most divine,
Which my God feels as blood; but I, as wine[23].

Sign

Herbert’s words are also a reminder of how communion in both kinds – the giving of the Cup and the taste of sacramental wine – is a constitutive part of Anglicanism’s native piety and eucharistic devotion. Practical aspects of the liturgy ensured that this was so. From 1552, the sacrament was administered to communicants "in their hands"[24]. The Canons of 1604 required the churchwardens to provide "for every Communion … good and wholsome Wine"[25]. These practical provisions brought communicants to experience a key aspect of the Anglican critique of transubstantiation, that this doctrine "overthroweth the nature of a Sacrament" as it denied the reality of the sign: "after the words of consecration … in the chalice there is no wine"[26]. Against this Taylor insists:

the senses are competent judges of the natural being of what they see, and taste, and smell, and feel[27].

This draws the communicant to experience "the nature of a Sacrament," the correspondence between sign and thing signified, between outward, visible sign and inward, spiritual grace. The Catechism points to this, with "refreshing" connected with the sign of wine:

The strengthening and refreshing of our souls by the Body and Blood of Christ, as our bodies are by the Bread and Wine[28].

In the Prayer of Humble Access this correspondence between sign and thing signified is given compelling liturgical expression:

Grant us therefore, gracious Lord, 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.

It is not, of course, that the gift of the Lord’s Blood has a redemptive significance different to or apart from the Lord’s Body, but it is that the sign of wine corresponds to another aspect of the one mystery of our redemption, that "full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction."

Partaking of the Cup brings us through our senses to be touched by the fullness of the "these holy mysteries." Thomas Ken captures this in his Eucharistic devotions for "After Receiving the Cup," ‘thick’ with the imagery of refreshment, festivity, and nuptial love associated with wine, corresponding to the blessing and merits of the thing signified, "thy precious blood":

Glory be to Thee, O Lord Jesus, who permittest me to drink of the fountain of life freely!

My Beloved is mine, and I am his!

Blessed Saviour, Thou hast Loved us, and washed us from our sins in Thy own bloud, and therefore to Thee be Glory and Dominion, for ever and ever. Amen, Amen.

Glory be to Thee O Jesus, My Lord, and my God, for thus feeding my Soul, with thy most blessed body and bloud, O let Thy Heavenly food transfuse new life, and new vigour into my Soul[29].

Conclusion

The teaching of Article XXX on the reception of the Cup of the Lord, rather than being a relic from a long-past and now resolved debate, should continue to have a vibrant significance for the Anglican tradition. Not only does it address a matter with ongoing ecumenical relevance, it also offers a means of entering into the richness of classical Anglican eucharistic teaching and piety. Receiving afresh this Article can be a mean of means of renewing that teaching and piety:

… especially in the sacraments, where the word is preached and consigned, and the Spirit is the teacher, and the feeder, and makes the table full, and the cup to overflow with blessing[30].

Laudable Practice is the pen name of a blogger living in Northern Ireland. He is a priest in the Church of Ireland.

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[1] Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1390.

[2] GIRM, 14.

[3] Anglican-Roman Catholic Joint Preparatory Commission, Agreed Statement on Eucharistic Doctrine (1971), 3.

[4] CCC, 1390.

[5] See ‘‘Guidelines for the Reception of Communion during the extraordinary form of the Mass’, Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference.

[6] Joseph Shaw, ‘The Reception of the Host Alone by the Faithful’, Rorate Caeli, 12^th June 2013.

[7] John Jewel, The Apology of the Church of England, Part II.

[8] ‘An Homily of the Worthy receiving and reverent esteeming of the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ’, Part I.

[9] From the third Exhortation in the Holy Communion, 1662.

[10] John Jewel, A Treatise of the Sacraments.

[11] Jewel, ibid., notes of the eucharistic controversies: "This matter these two or three hundred years late past, hath been encumbered with many questions and much controversy".

[12] Jeremy Taylor, A Copy of a Letter Written to a Gentlewoman Newly Seduced to the Church of Rome.

[13] Article XXVIII: "verum potius est sacramentum nostrae per mortem Christi redemptionis".

[14] Michael Ramsey, ‘The Parish Communion’ in Durham Essays and Addresses (1956), p.18. He continues: "I miss too often, in these parish Communion services, the due recognition in teaching and atmosphere … of the awful fact of the one, sufficient sacrifice of our Lord on Calvary".

[15] The post-Communion Prayer of Oblation, Holy Communion 1662.

[16] The post-Communion Prayer of Thanksgiving, Holy Communion 1662.

[17] Jeremy Taylor, The Great Exemplar, III.XV.9.

[18] Jewel, A Treatise of the Sacraments: "For here, in a mystery and Sacrament of bread, is set before us the body of Christ our Saviour; and his blood in the Sacrament of Wine". The phrase is taken from Augustine, whom he quotes: "S. Augustine calleth this holy mystery, Sacramentum panis & vini: ’The Sacrament of bread & wine’."  

[19] Taylor, op. cit., III.XV.7.

[20] Fleming Rutledge, Three Hours: Sermons for Good Friday (2019), p.7.

[21] From the 1662 Catechism, in answer to the question "Why was the Sacrament of the Lord’s Supper ordained?".

[22] Article XXVIII.

[23] George Herbert, ‘The Agonie’.

[24] From the rubric at the distribution in Holy Communion 1552.

[25] Canon XX.

[26] Jeremy Taylor The Real Presence and Spiritual of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament Proved against the Doctrine of Transubstantiation, 1.12.

[27] Ibid., 10.6.

[28] 1662 Catechism, in answer to "What are the benefits whereof we are partakers thereby?".

[29] Thomas Ken, A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Scholars of Winchester College (1675). Note the different imagery employed in the devotions for "After Receiving the Bread": "Glory be to Thee, O Lord, who feedest me with the bread of life. O Lord God, who didst sanctifie us, by the offering of the body of Jesus once for all, sanctifie me, even me, O Heavenly Father!".

[30] Jeremy Taylor, The Worthy Communicant, I.II.

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