<html><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; ">A meditation by the Rev. Stephen Gerth, Rector of St Mary the Virgin, New York.<div><br></div><div>Bishop Pierre<br><div><br><div>Début du message réexpédié :</div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"><blockquote type="cite"><div><div style="margin-top: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; "><font class="Apple-style-span" color="#000000"><b><br></b></font></div> </div><div><br>I thought you might find this of interest, historically and theologically.<br>It is from Stephen Gerth, the Recor at St Mary the Virgin.<br>Peter<br><br><br>From the Rector: One Body, One Cup<br><br><br><br>The first time I attended a service in an Episcopal parish church was sometime during my teenage years. I was there with friends and, frankly, I don't remember much. But I do remember how everyone received communion. They were drinking from the same cup. In the Southern Baptist congregations in which I was brought up, we drank from individual cups. In my paternal grandparents' Roman Catholic Church, the only person I ever saw drinking was the priest. Episcopalians sharing one cup was something that made enough of an impression for me to remember it, but I never gave it much thought until some years later. That was in the 1970s when I was in graduate school in Chicago.<br><br><br><br>One Sunday some friends and I attended Mass at one of Chicago's historically black parishes, Saint Edmund's Church. At communion, the priest had some kind of combination plate and cup set I had never seen before. Everyone received communion from one of the priests at the altar rail who dipped the host into the wine before placing it on one's tongue. I was told this "intinction set" was the way communion was given in African-American congregations. The practice was a legacy from the days of segregation so blacks and persons of mixed race would not have to drink after one another, not to mention the occasional white visitor.<br><br><br><br>There's nothing wrong of course with receiving communion by intinction, but the reason this tradition had come about at Saint Edmund's, though understandable, was so sad, so wrong. It was one of the many ways the sin of racism continued to express itself in a denomination long after the end of the American Civil War. I think it is important to remember that even after World War II, support for racial segregation was no bar to membership or leadership in the Episcopal Church until all too recently - nor, if you were a bishop, was it ever a bar to receiving an invitation from the archbishop of Canterbury to a Lambeth Conference.<br><br><br><br>Except for the occasional person who held a host in the palm of his or her hand for a minister to take and dip in the wine because he or she had been sick, I don't think I was really aware of communion by intinction again until I got out of seminary. That was in 1983. People were starting to be very worried about AIDS. Intinction came back, and this time with a twist: Priests in many places started to permit communicants to dip the host they had received into the wine themselves.<br><br>One of the things one learns early as a member of the clergy is that you don't have to worry about getting sick when drinking after others. If that were a problem, none of the clergy of the Church would be here for very long, or would ever be healthy. We drink after everybody, often daily.<br><br><br><br>The practice of letting communicants, kneeling or standing, put a host into the chalice themselves always results in many fingers going into the wine. In congregations where this practice has become normative, one can always see some communicants bringing handkerchiefs or tissues with them to the altar rail to be prepared to wipe their fingers if they get wine on them. Father Mead tells a useful story from his days serving as seminarian in a parish where people dipped the host into the wine themselves. One Sunday when he was serving as a minister of the chalice, with the light just right, he saw a film form on the surface as communion continued. The word he uses when he recounts the experience is "disgusting."<br><br><br><br>Recently I had the chance to ask the Reverend George Brandt, rector, Saint Michael's Church, New York City, about Saint Edmund's Church. Father Brandt had grown up in one of the great black parishes of Harlem. He said my memory was correct. One of his own childhood memories is singing with his parish's boys' choir at a Eucharist in a Manhattan parish. The parishioners, white, drank from the chalice. The boys, black, received by intinction. Father's memory made me wonder what happened at Saint Mary's in days past, knowing as I do that as late as 1914 and perhaps later, it was the practice here for African-American members to be seated in the rear of the church on the side aisles.<br><br><br><br>Let me be clear: intinction is not the problem. The practice is ancient and has its roots in reverence, not racism or in prejudice against persons living with HIV or other diseases. But its new and widespread place in our Church's common life isn't a renewal of reverence. The practice of "auto-intinction," doing it yourself, to coin a phrase, is a new thing for Episcopalians and it is very troubling. It should be eschewed for reasons practical (see above). The general encouragement being given for intinction should stop for reasons theological (continue reading).<br><br><br><br>Why does the way in which we receive communion matter? First and most important of all, we do not pray over bread and wine at Mass to consecrate bread and wine. God doesn't need us to make more Christ. We, the congregation, pray - note well, the presider is always proclaiming "our" prayer on behalf of all of us, never "his" or "her" prayer - that the Holy Spirit will come to fill the gifts of bread and wine with his presence and to fill us with his presence so that the holy meal may help us grow to be one in Christ. The Mass is not about God's bread and wine as much as it is about God's people. We are not at Mass to be or grow spiritually merely as individuals but to be one in Christ.<br><br><br><br>The sharing of a meal and the use of a common cup starts with Jesus and his disciples. But our customs have always been about more than the way people drank in earlier days. How we eat and drink was and is a sign of relationship, a recognition, rooted in our human biology, of the other being of the same family, language, tribe and nation. Nothing continues to say who we are in Christ as Episcopal Christians more than how we eat the Lord's Supper. Again, the common cup proclaims and reminds us and all who join us that we are sisters and brothers in Christ, one family, one body, one Christ. My own impression is that receiving by intinction is practically unknown in families that have been Episcopalian for more than two generations, except in African-American congregations.<br><br><br><br>We at Saint Mary's are heirs of a tradition that sets aside a Sunday, commonly called "Corpus Christi" - Latin for "Body of Christ," to celebrate the gift of the Eucharist. This is what we will be celebrating on June 14, this "Second Sunday after Pentecost." I invite you to be here to share the one cup, to be made even more a part of Christ's one body. Stephen Gerth<br><br><br></div></blockquote></div><br><div apple-content-edited="true"> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: auto; text-indent: 0px; text-transform: none; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; -webkit-text-stroke-width: 0; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; -webkit-border-horizontal-spacing: 0px; -webkit-border-vertical-spacing: 0px; color: rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 12px; font-style: normal; font-variant: normal; font-weight: normal; letter-spacing: normal; line-height: normal; -webkit-text-decorations-in-effect: none; text-indent: 0px; -webkit-text-size-adjust: auto; text-transform: none; orphans: 2; white-space: normal; widows: 2; word-spacing: 0px; "><div>The Rt. Rev. Pierre W. Whalon, D.D.</div><div>Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe</div><div>23 avenue George V</div><div>75008 Paris France</div><div>+33 1 53 23 84 06 (tel)</div><div>+33 1 49 52 96 85 (fax)</div><div><a href="mailto:office@tec-europe.org">office@tec-europe.org</a></div><div><br class="khtml-block-placeholder"></div><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"></span></span></span></span></span></div></span></div></span><br class="Apple-interchange-newline"> </div><br></div></body></html>=