Your answers
Where does the practice of using amber wine for
communion come from, and why is it done? Do we not lose the
symbolism of red wine?
Experience of the wide spectrum of eucharistic practice in the
Anglican Church will confirm the impression that use of amber wine
for communion is mainly associated with the Anglo-Catholic
tradition. Like much else taken over from customary practices of
the 19th-century Roman Catholic Church, amber or white wines were
frequently adopted without hesitation as part of the "proper way of
doing things" in Catholic-minded circles.
It is thought that amber wine was introduced in the Western
Church during the post-Tridentine era. J. A. Jungmann gave his
opinion that "when . . . the use of the purificator became general,
that is since the sixteenth century, white wine has become commonly
preferred because it leaves fewer traces in the linen" (The
Mass of the Roman Rite, 1959). In the same way, Peter Elliott
reckoned that amber or white wine had been favoured in the Western
Rites because of this convenience of washing altar linens
(Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite, second edition,
2004).
Unlike the acute controversy over the use of leavened or
unleavened bread, at the time of the Great Schism between East and
West in the 11th century, the exact colour of altar wine has not
been a contentious issue, and at no time has there been any
canonical regulation to make wine of a particular colour
universally obligatory. It has been acknowledged that obviously red
wine is a better eucharistic symbol than amber or white; as such it
has sometimes been referred to as "the blood of the grape", as well
as "the fruit of the vine". This symbolic value, however, true as
it is, weighs far less with those who maintain a strong realist
view of the sacramental presence: the visual appearance of
consecrated wine of whatever shade is independent of the res
sacramenti - that of Christ's real presence in the Blessed
Sacrament of his Body and Blood in holy communion.
(Canon) Terry Palmer, Magor,
Monmouthshire
Your questions
Roman Catholic bookshops sell children's mass books with
pictures to help them learn to understand the liturgy. I have not
seen anything like this for Anglicans for years. Is it one of the
reasons that our children are now deemed incapable of taking part
in anything that is not "messy"? Are we missing an
opportunity?
G. M.
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