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A more clearly evident sign: receiving from the chalice
Both
the General Instruction of the Roman Missal and the teaching document
from the bishops in these islands, One Bread, One Body, encourage the
reception of Holy Communion under both kinds by the faithful. The
application of this teaching, particularly since the Covid-19 pandemic,
has been uneven. Here our editor examines why this is a problem
‘Holy Communion has a fuller form as a sign when it takes place under both kinds. For in this form the sign of the Eucharistic banquet is more clearly evident and clearer expression is given to the divine will by which the new and eternal Covenant is ratified in the Blood of the Lord, as also the connection between the Eucharistic banquet and the eschatological banquet in the Kingdom of the Father.’1
In rather cautious language (some might say ‘clunky’), this authoritative text of the Missale Romanum encourages Holy Communion under both kinds; this follows the two earlier versions of the General Instruction and the endorsement in the 1998 teaching document issued by the Bishops’ Conferences of England and Wales, Scotland, and Ireland, One Bread, One Body, which at the time was better known for laying down the conditions by which Holy Communion could be given to non-Catholics:
We receive the whole Christ when receiving Holy Communion either under the form of bread or under the form of wine, but Catholics are ‘encouraged to desire Communion under both kinds in which the meaning of the Eucharistic banquet is more fully signified.’2 St Cyril of Jerusalem, in the fourth century, summed up the practice of the early Church for coming forward for Holy Communion: ‘Make your left hand a throne for your right, since your right hand is about to welcome a king. Cup your palm and receive in it Christ’s body, saying in response “Amen”. … After partaking of Christ’s body, go to receive the chalice of his blood. … Bow your head and say “Amen” to show your homage and reverence, and sanctify yourself by partaking also of Christ’s blood.’3 Receiving from the chalice expresses powerfully the sacrificial nature of the Mass. By taking part in the Eucharist, we are drawn deeper into the new and everlasting covenant which was sealed with the blood of the Lamb. Our communion together in the blood of Christ is our communion with the sacrificial self-giving of Our Lord. As we take the cup of salvation, we say that we are ready to drink from the cup that he drank4 and to give ourselves in sacrificial love as servants of salvation.’5
These are extracts from two authoritative teaching documents which unambiguously encourage the reception of Holy Communion under both kinds by the Faithful at Mass, in addition to the presiding priest, the deacon and any concelebrating priests. For 50 years or so, the implementation of this teaching worldwide has been uneven. While sharing the chalice had to be suspended during the Covid-19 pandemic, its restoration since 2022 has been uneven too. Why is this and what can be done about it?
Liturgical theology and sharing the chalice
The impression is often given among Catholics that the practice of offering the chalice to the Faithful is a question of ‘take it or leave it’. It can be done in some places, but you don’t have to. The General Instruction, however, makes it clear that this is not a ‘level playing field’; we are encouraged to do it. Bishops and the Bishops’ Conference are given the authority to implement arrangements for Communion under both kinds, and that is what the conferences in this island were doing when they issued One Bread, One Body. The reference to St Cyril of Jerusalem shows that this is what happened in the early Church, and the very words of the Lord in the institution narratives do not qualify those to whom the command to drink the cup is addressed. Cups of wine were associated with banquets in the ancient world, influencing Jewish and early Christian practice; sharing the cup points to this.6
Vatican II’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, proposed offering Holy Communion under both kinds on certain occasions; the text from the General Instruction quoted above follows closely the 1967 Instruction from the Sacred Congregation Eucharisticum mysterium which began the process of implementing the Council’s teaching. The text is worth looking at closely. There are three key theological images – the ‘Eucharistic Banquet’, the ‘new and eternal banquet … ratified in the Blood of the Lord’ and the ‘eschatological banquet in the Father’s kingdom’.
Often Catholics, for various reasons, are over-concerned by ideas of validity, perhaps even seen as the least we can do to receive God’s grace: this can make us overlook the importance of liturgical symbolism and aesthetics. So receiving Holy Communion under both kinds is a ‘fuller form’7 which makes the sign of the eucharistic banquet ‘more clearly evident’.8 The Catholic Church teaches that ‘we receive the whole Christ, whole and entire’ when we only receive under one kind, and that ‘those who received under only one species are not deprived of any of the grace that is necessary for salvation’.9 But the symbolism, what is visibly evident, is still important. Receiving Holy Communion is a ritual act for the whole community, not a collection of isolated individuals who happen to be in the same building. Good symbolism matters.
The second ‘banquet-image’ is also important. Receiving Holy Communion under both forms is also more clearly evident in relation to the Sacrifice of the Mass, the ‘divine will by which the new and eternal Covenant is ratified in the Blood of the Lord’. The 1970 Missale Romanum is often falsely accused of having an impoverished theology of sacrifice, but the imagery and symbolism of sharing the chalice containing the Lord’s Precious Blood reiterates and strengthens this theology, far beyond what people could perceive in the preconciliar Mass. When Jesus prays in Gethsemane, ‘Take this cup away from me’ (Mark 14.36, RNJB), the imagery of drinking from the cup it about his accepting God’s will unto death. Drinking from a cup points to the Lord’s sacrifice in which we share whenever we come to Mass. As the American Commentary on the General Instruction of the Roman Missal puts it, ‘Without the cup, the faithful are deprived of this potent symbol of Christ’s sacrifice and the new covenant into which they were baptized.’10
The third image, of the eschatological banquet, is important because, as many liturgists have pointed out, the connection between the Eucharist and eschatology is not reflected on as much as one might expect. Pope St John Paul II in his 2004 exhortation Mane nobiscum Domine (marking the Year of the Eucharist), wrote that the Eucharist not only ‘makes present what occurred in the past…[but] also impels us towards the future, when Christ will come again at the end of history’.11 Those of us who celebrate Funeral Masses need go no further than Isaiah’s joyful and lavish vision: ‘On this mountain, the Lord Sabaoth is preparing for all peoples a banquet of rich food, a banquet of fine wines, of succulent food, of well-strained wines.’ (Isa 25.6) The imagery is exuberant and generous.
The Eucharist is not simply a source of hope – it is also a call to mission. So Vatican II’s Decree on the Missionary Life of the Church, Ad gentes, speaks of how ‘through the Eucharistic sacrifice [the Christian community] …bears witness to Christ…[and] walks in charity and is enlivened by an apostolic spirit.’ (Section 15) Readers of this journal are well aware that the Synod on Synodality is focussed on the missionary life of the Church; renewing our understanding of the importance of receiving Holy Communion under both kinds would be a good way to celebrate and mark this call to mission, pointing to the return of Christ.
The rich theology of this brief paragraph of the General Instruction offers us so much to reflect on. While liturgical documents rightly stress continuity with the past and faithfulness to unchanging characteristics of Catholic teaching, we should not be hesitant if new ground is broken. The Council, and those who were responsible for implementing its teaching, wanted to extend the giving of the chalice for good and important theological reasons; pastors and catechists should be aware of these.
Another factor of which some are not sufficiently aware is the Church’s authority to change liturgical practice. Further on, in section 282 of the General Instruction quoted above, we are told that pastors are ‘to teach, furthermore, that the Church, in her stewardship of the Sacraments, has the power to set forth or alter whatever provisions, apart from the substance of the Sacraments, that she judges to be most conducive to the veneration of the Sacraments and the well being of the recipients, in view of changing conditions, times and places’.12 At the same time, the faithful should be encouraged ‘to seek to participate more eagerly in this sacred rite, by which the sign of the Eucharistic banquet is made more fully evident.’
This is pretty clear: people are to be encouraged. The Church has the authority to do this, and this is backed up by reference to the Council of Trent in 1562.
‘Prudence’ and opposition
Since the 1960s, people have often speculated about why some Catholics, both laypeople and clergy, are at best unenthusiastic about all this. Some of the reasons are good in origin, stemming from reverence towards the consecrated elements and the risks of irreverence; other reasons might include cost or the fact that in many cultures grape wine is not an indigenous drink. Historically it has been one of the distinctions between Catholics and Protestants (and indeed Orthodox), almost a badge of pride (it was of course a key point of conflict in the late Middle Ages with the Hussites and Lollards, and became a big issue in the Reformation). Before 2020, the practice was becoming gradually more common, at least in Britain and North America, but it was very uneven elsewhere or in some places unheard of. For many opponents of the liturgical reforms following the Second Vatican Council, it was seen, like receiving Holy Communion on the hand, as one of the worst things about the Mass of St Paul VI – in all this, the theological rationale outlined above, as far as I am aware, was not addressed or challenged.
When the practice was being introduced in the late 1960s, provision was made for three alternative methods alongside enabling the Faithful to drink from the chalice – intinction, use of a tube (fistula), or a spoon (following Eastern rites). In the latest version of the General Instruction, reference to the tube and the spoon was removed and these are not permitted; moreover, at least in England and Wales, intinction, except for concelebrants (for whom it is required, the last Covid-19 regulation to be in force), is not permitted. These alternative methods, all of which disturb the symbolic value of receiving from a common chalice, were attempts to meet concerns about hygiene, the danger of spreading infection; since many churches include elderly and vulnerable people, such concerns would seem at first sight to make sense. At the same time, there is a lack of evidence that receiving Holy Communion has actually spread infection: as is often pointed out, the alcohol in the Precious Blood and the use of metal chalices makes Communion inhospitable for germs.13
Consequently, when the Covid-19 virus began to spread quickly in Britain from March 2020, permission for Holy Communion from the chalice was withdrawn (alongside this were introduced in England and Wales strict precautions for concelebrating priests and, eventually, a forbidding of the practice of receiving the Host on the tongue14); permission was not restored until Maundy Thursday 2023. This precaution, like the sad closure of churches for a time, was entirely right and focussed on the need for people worshipping in churches to be safe from what at the time was often a fatal infection. Pastors were and are responsible for ensuring that churches are safe.
I am not aware of any proper surveys about how far the practice has been restored in communities where it was common prior to March 2020, but it is clear I think that it has not reappeared as widely as one might have expected.
I think there are a number of reasons:
The pandemic has created an atmosphere of fearfulness, especially as the virus has not gone away. ‘You can’t be too careful’ is an understandable rule of thumb, and the suffering and death are recent memories. Caution and hesitancy do need to be acknowledged and respected.
Many churches lost volunteers for many liturgical duties, including Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, on whom in most churches parishes depended to be able to give Holy Communion from the chalice. Many ministers were and are themselves elderly and anxious about their own health.
I suspect the theological arguments for doing have seldom been explained to people, which can mean that people don’t understand why it is important. I was told of a parish recently where the clergy had decided to reintroduce it, but had to reverse the decision when there was an outcry from laypeople.
Parishes since the pandemic have faced a lot of competing priorities, and restarting Holy Communion from the chalice, with the practical precautions and catechesis needed, might not be very high on the list.
Some priests were never very keen, or simply can’t be bothered.
What can be done
These are perhaps ‘early days’, less than two years since permission was given again. But pastors should revisit the vision of the liturgical books and our bishops – the encouragement, and the theological arguments underlying this, has not been rescinded or qualified. When we do reintroduce this beautiful practice, we need to take time to explain why it is important and beautiful. Perhaps a new teaching document from the three Bishops’ Conferences in these islands, like One Bread, One Body, would be helpful.
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