Your answers
At my parents' church, consecrated hosts are intincted
before they are reserved. Is this common practice in the C of E? If
so, why?
The ninth-century Abbot Regino of Prume provides evidence of
reservation by intinction, and the benefit this has for
communicants: "the sacred oblations ought to be intincted in the
blood of Christ, that the presbyter may be able truthfully to say
to the sick man, May the body and blood of Christ protect thee"
(quoted on page 611 of Liturgy and Worship, ed. W. K.
Lowther-Clarke, SPCK, 1959).
For many centuries before the Lateran Council of 1215 decreed
communion in one kind, intinction was common at the liturgy, and
thence the reserved sacrament. The prevalence of this method of
reservation in the modern Church of England has, therefore, good
precedent in the early-medieval Western Church (particularly in
Spain and Gaul) and, of course in the universal practice of the
Eastern Orthodox Church. This widespread practice in many churches
must, however, be located within the Anglican tradition that has
always placed importance on communion in both kinds (Article
XXX).
When reservation was restored in Anglican churches, diversity of
practice reflected doctrinal presuppositons. Clergy who relied
heavily on the accepted doctrine that Christ is received whole and
entire under either the consecrated bread or wine - the doctrine of
concomitance - always reserved the sacrament in one kind only: the
consecrated bread.
On the other hand, insistence that communion in both kinds
separately should be the norm necessitated ways and means of
reservation in both species, as required by specific rubric in the
Communion of the Sick in the 1928 Proposed Prayer Book. It was
against this diversified background that reservation with intincted
hosts was widely adopted.
It is a method that avoids problems of prolonged preservation of
wine in an aumbry, but at the same time preserves a reality of
"both kinds in one" when given in holy communion. Additionally, it
has the practical advantage of greater security when carrying the
sacrament from church to housebound communicants.
(Canon) Terry Palmer
Magor, Monmouthshire
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