The diocese of Truro is going against the spirit of Communion by Extension in authorising its widespread use: Alison Milbank

Save The Parish's co-founder Alison Milbank throws a spotlight on the Diocese of Truro's deeply flawed approach to Communion by Extension. Alison is Professor of Theology and Literature at the University of Nottingham and Priest Vicar and Canon Theologian at Southwell Minster

Communion By Extension: A Critique

1.      1. In legislation, it was only intended for occasional, ‘exceptional’  use. In 2001 the Archbishops’ Council agreed to allow Extended Communion, in which the consecrated elements would be taken the same day from a central benefice eucharist (as was envisaged) and shared by people in another church in the group. The legislation stressed that this practice should not replace regular eucharists.

2.      2. The diocese of Truro is going against the spirit of the legislation in authorising its widespread use. It is presented as regular liturgical fare, as a way of dealing with the rationing of priestly ministry in their ‘On the Way’ pastoral reorganisation scheme.

3.      3. It undervalues the centrality of the sacrament, which is essential in Anglican canon law. It is clear from diocesan language that they do not value the Holy Communion as essential, writing in the Kerrier Deanery Plan: ‘So for those people who benefit from this spiritual food, it will be more freely available than at present in most parishes.’  This presumes that there are those who will not benefit, which is a truly shocking statement, which cuts across the Anglican rule that the confirmed should receive the sacrament at key points in the year as a minimum requirement. A second source of irony is that this claim that the eucharist is an optional extra is being held in tandem with a trust in Christ’s real presence in the sacrament, on which the very idea of Communion by Extension depends.

4.     4. Holy Communion at some time during Sunday has been the norm in all Anglican parishes. Most Anglican churches in Britain were affected by the Catholic revival in some way over the years, and the Parish and People Movement brought the new liturgical theology that would emerge in Vatican II to the Church of England. This put Holy Communion at the heart of Sunday worship in most parishes. Moreover, even when this was not the case, all Anglican churches traditionally held either an early celebration on Sundays or had one developing out of Morning Prayer as an Ante-Communion, for which the pious stayed on to receive the sacrament. This was common to all schools of Anglican practice, including evangelicals.

5.     5. It makes nonsense of the aim to create missionary disciples. The magazine, Parish and People¸ the fruit of this 1950s movement, demonstrated that having Holy Communion as the central service, moved the emphasis away from people ‘going to church’ to ‘being the church’, anticipating the theology of Vatican II, which turned the priest’s mutter of the Tridentine rite into a more participatory ritual. In all Christian churches, the understanding of the eucharist in the later part of the twentieth century returned to a more ancient mode in which the whole Church community made the offering. We are the body of Christ, and it is ourselves as part of the whole cosmos which we bring before God for transformation. That is what enables growth in holiness and discipleship.

6.     6. Communion by reception is just that: receptive rather than active, individual rather than relational. It is here that the real crux lies. In Communion by reception, we are back in the old days of making one’s personal, individual communion: an action of pure reception. Yet we have come over many years to understand that the rite is communal, and about our life as a parochial community and our personhood as constituted by being Christ’s body. The personal transformation is important, but it is relationally constituted – in Christ – and our communal offering of thanks and praise is part of the action that transforms us. The language of Anglican documents these days is all about mission, and the need for outreach. Yet if our only access to the sacrament is as consumers, our formation as the missionary disciples our leaders desire us to be is impossible. Indeed, the rite becomes more interior, more private, whereas the proclamation and the action are central to the eucharist as witness.  The fact that it will be a lay member of the congregation rather than the priest, only emphasizes the private focus, as the priest’s presence opens us to the universal Church beyond our parochial boundary.

7.     7. Jesus told us to celebrate the eucharist: ‘do this’. Above all, the most powerful argument in favour of regular celebration of the eucharist is the witness of the Bible. Our Lord’s words in the gospels are a direct command: ‘do this’. In Luke 22.15, Christ says to them, ‘I have earnestly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer’. This is one of the most authoritative instructions Christ gives us, and we must do it.

8.      8. The eucharist makes the Church. We are made one by it; in the sacrament  we encounter Christ and find our unity in him. It is a wholly missional action in which all are invited to come and see. It is therefore natural that parishes understand themselves as eucharistic communities, who see their life proceeding from the sacrament. They have an implicit understanding of the Church herself as a sacrament, a sign of God’s action of love and forgiveness. Indeed, the more sinful we are, the stronger the sign! In the Holy Communion we enact that movement from sin to forgiveness and reconciliation. It is enacted theology.

 9.   Truro’s extension of Communion by Extension lays the ground for illegal lay presidency. Another reason of a different nature to oppose the widespread employment of Communion by Extension is that it is part of a slippery slope towards lay presidency, which not even the free churches allow and which aggrandises the individual celebrant as opposed to the ordained person acting on our behalf. It is possible that Truro in so lavishly allowing Communion by Extension, which by perforce is brought and offered by a lay person, hope to open the possibility in the future of lay presidency. In a Church Army report by George Lings in 2017, only 46% of the new worshipping communities (including church plants) had celebrated the eucharist at all over a four-year period, and in 31 it was quite illegally lay-led (Encountering the Day, 199).

 

1010 .Making Communion by Extension universal undermines Anglican tradition. It may appear to be a rural problem but a doctoral thesis by Philip N. Tovey about its use in Oxford diocese discovered that it is equally an urban practice, and there were as many such services in Oxford itself (which is well catered for in priestly numbers) as the countryside. He quotes one (unnamed) bishop as disliking the practice because ‘it means the only way they can imagine being Church is to cling as best they can to a way of worshipping which feels secure and familiar’ (227). Eucharistic participation is being consigned here to the past. Indeed, it is all of a piece with the denigration in the Church of England policy of anything that might be called ‘inherited church’. But inheritors and heirs are what we are as Christians. By definition, at our baptism, we become inheritors of the Church and all that she offers, as well as beneficiaries of the eschatological promise when Church and world are one liturgical community of the Kingdom.

1111. The dramatic action of the eucharist can convert. The poet and artist David Jones was converted to faith by peering through a hole in the wall of a semi-derelict barn, while out collecting firewood as a soldier at the western front. Through that aperture he saw the eucharist being celebrated and was transfixed by its beauty and realism. It spoke powerfully to the carnage with which he found himself surrounded. The eucharist can speak still, and transform lives, but we need to enact its full narrative if it is to have its transformative power.