Prior to the Reformation, it was common for some of the bread and wine of Communion to be placed aside or 'reserved', to use the technical term, so that it could be taken later to the frail and sick unable to attend the church. However, the Reformers were concerned that some other practices had become associated with such reservation. Under the influence of ideas of transubstantiation in which the bread and wine were understood to be in some substantial way the body and blood of Jesus Christ, there were times when the reserved bread and wine were carried in special processions and were worshipped in their own right. The bread and wine were sometimes reserved as the objects of worship rather than for the pastoral purposes of sharing with the sick and frail. The Reformers, anxious to rid the church of such superstitious behaviour, discouraged the reservation of the bread and wine. It became common practice for the Reformed clergy to hold a private communion service with the sick and frail rather than use bread and wine from the Communion table in the service in the church.

However, there has been something of a revival of the use of the reserved bread and wine in the last century. Patricia Bouma, a licenced lay minister in the Anglican Church in the Diocese of Melbourne, has just completed a thesis on the topic. In the thesis she examines Anglican traditions and particularly the views of the Reformers. She argues that Cranmer and the later revisers of the Book of Common Prayer did not abolish reservation for communion with the sick. Rather, they abolished the rituals in which the reserved bread and wine were worshipped, because of the superstitions which had become associated with those rituals.

Patricia Bouma interviewed clergy in the Anglican Diocese of Melbourne and eight parishoners associated with different churches who regularly received Communion in their homes about their experiences of Communion and the meaning that it had for them. She noted that both the practices of private communion and the use of reserved communion are common within the Diocese. Some clergy practise either private communion or reserved communion and defend their choice as being the only one which is true to Anglican traditions. Others practise a mixture.

Patricia Bouma found that there were some differences in both the intention of the clergy and the perception of the sick and frail who received the bread and wine as a private communion or as reserved communion. The clergy who used reserved communion saw it as a way of including the sick and frail in the life of the parish. The sharing of the bread and wine create the community of faith rather than the community being constituted by the people who gather in a particular church building. The communion became 'like a wedding cake celebrated, portioned out and distributed with enough saved to give relatives or friends unable to attend' (Bouma 2000, p.70). The communion became a way to affirm that 'the sick did not worship alone or in isolation but were bodily and spiritually gathered up in the Eucharist and communion of saints' (Bouma 2000, p.70). The parishoners were well aware of this emphasis. They reported experiencing part of the wider church community through the reserved bread and wine. Most of them reported the experience of connection through the act of communion: 'I like my communion to be part of the church. Someone in my parish family thought to bring me a share of the family meal.' (Bouma 2000, p.74).

On the other hand, those who practised private communion tended to see it as 'creating a little church' as the clergy and frail or sick parishoners shared in communion together. They saw their own presence as representing the wider community of the church and providing the link to the local church community. However, the parishoners reported that they did not feel the same sense of community through the private communion. Several reported that they missed the context of the faith community. 'I did not enjoy being solitary', said one parishoner. 'It would have been better to have some parishoners here' (Bouma 2000, p.74).

The sense of belonging both to the universal community of Christians and a local community of people who share the belief and commitment is an important aspect of the Christian life. As community life becomes increasingly fragmented in our fast-moving world, it is especially easy for the sick and the frail to lose that sense of community altogether. According to the 1996 Census, 20 per cent of all people over the age of 70 live alone. Many lose connections with family and friends and church communities. In many places, clergy and lay people find it hard to maintain the patterns of pastoral visitation. The incorporation of the sick and frail into the life of the church is an important responsibility of the whole church.

Philip Hughes

Reference:

Patricia V Bouma, 2000, Reservation and Communion of the Sick: Anglican Tradition and Contemporary Australian Practice, Thesis for Master of Ministry, Melbourne College of Divinity.