Communion at St Gregory’s
18 July 2008 - 16 תמוז 5768 by Huw
F All the liturgical memories I have from SGN, the most joyful and awe-full one is giving communion. I was never worried about getting it wrong. Everything else - speaking, reading, preaching - left me worried that I’d mess something up. Giving communion came to me naturally: Placing the bread in the hands of someone, locking eyes for a moment. Name, the Body of Christ. Holding their hands as I placed the bread in them, just for a moment, a deep intimacy that can never be duplicated.
As I’ve written many times in these pages, I once asked Donald if I was saying something about the bread, or about the person to whom I was speaking. His reply was “yes”.
That bread is holy because the community has named it so. We, the bread and us, together, are holy in the act of feeding each other. Our names, our faces, our deepest selves, are revealed in that moment: and either is meaningless without the other.
One day I came to my friend, several months pregnant with her first child: a girl whom they had named already. And holding up the bread between us, I said her name as well as the name of her daughter. Name and Name the Body of Christ.” And she was a little startled. I was, too: the inspiration came to me at that moment, coming out of my mouth even as it was whispered in my heart.
Another day, when I wasn’t vested as a deacon, I stood near the altar waiting to take communion. As I always do - when I was Orthdoox and even now - I whispered the Prayer of Humble Access, “We do not presume to come to this, thy table…” as a bit of preparation. I bent by head in sort of a sketch of a bow. And opening my eyes, I noticed for the first time that the floor was covered in crumbs - left over, no doubt, from the 8:30 service. And while my Anglo-catholic upbringing must have cringed in some corner of my psyche, it suddenly all made sense. We are the body, the bread is the body, our bodies return to dust… there was no way to commit sacrilege in that space or time unless you tore some part of it out of context.
Following the teachings of the Fathers, some of us would wipe our lips of the holy wine with our finger-tips and then anoint our other senses: the eyes, ears, nose, hands… that all might become one with Jesus.
As noted in the post on the “Postcommunion”, the bread and the wine stayed on the altar - to be joined by other foods and drinks during coffee hour. Following the teachings of St Basil some took a portion of bread home, wrapping it in a napkin and putting it in their pocket or purse. Over the course of the week, this would be taken in personal acts of communion, blessed in the community and shared with all. Or it could be used to commune the sick. Or spouses who were not present.
For a time we experimented with a communion rite at home or during Bible study - a sort of Pre-sanctified rite. Bread would be crumbled and placed in wine to bless it, then we would pass communion around the table or room. Prayers were said before, during and after the communion - although nothing at all resembling a blessing or a consecration. This was communion from the reserved sacrament of the community.
Communion at SGN was the most important time - the holiest time, the most common time. A simple sharing of food - that in the context of the Kingdom becomes a sharing of God.
