Matthew's Journal

I still have a wedding write-up to do, but I wanted to scribble this down before I forgot too much of it.

Today's discussion was (mostly) about the eucharist. We briefly talked about when the eucharist did and didn't "work", i.e. when has Christ promised to be present. That discussion moved fairly swiftly onto the question of receiving worthily or not. St Paul says "For he that eateth and drinketh unworthily, eateth and drinketh damnation
to himself, not discerning the Lord's body.", and that you could not partake of communion if you have a grudge against your neighbour. Article 29 says "The Wicked, and such as be void of a lively faith, although they do carnally and visibly press with their teeth (as Saint Augustine saith) the Sacrament of the Body and Blood of Christ; yet in no wise are they partakers of Christ: but rather, to their condemnation, do eat and drink the sign or Sacrament of so great a thing."

So, it is fairly clear that a Bad Person does not recieve salvation through receiving communion. But is that because they receive Christ in the sacrament who then damns them, or because they don't receive Christ when they eat the bread and wine?

Around the time of the Reformation, the Roman Catholic Church took the former position. To simplify a bit, this is because of a desire to assert the Real Presence - Christ is present in the consecrated elements, and nothing we do can take Him away from them again. They were concerned that the Protestant position meant that Jesus was simply responding to our faith, rather than imposing himself on us through the sacrament. The underlying concern, if you like, was the lordship of Jesus.

The Protestants said that it was the communicant's faith that meant that they could partake of Our Lord when receiving the sacrament - people without faith would be just eating bread and wine. They were concerned with the idea that sacraments could be seen to make god manipulatable - that God present in the bread and wine could be waved around and used by us. The underlying concern, if you like, was the lordship of Jesus.

One of the strengths of much Anglican theology on the subject is that it manages to hold these two ideas in tension - both are, in the end, concerned with the lordship of Jesus, and we can avoid running either view to the extreme. I think, actually, this may be partly why I'm a little uncomfortable with Benediction; whilst exposing the sacrament and meditating on its presence is valuable, and whilst Benediction itself can be a profound experience, I worry about that it looks very much like God is there to be waved around by us; the liturgy at that point appears almost to be using God, vulnerable in the sacraments, for our own ends.

An interesting and stimulating hour or so, even if it did have another one of those moments.