The 1552 Institution of Anglican Communion in the Hand

"Why don't our own bishops understand what was so plainly evident to the likes of Thomas Cranmer?" And restore reverence for the Blessed Sacrament!

From Unam Sanctam Catholicam

By Boniface

I am still working through Nicholas Orme's magnum opus Going to Church in Medieval England (which I intend on doing a review on in the near future once I wrap it up) and I am nearing the end of the book where he talks about how the changes of the Tudor era altered the churchgoing experience of the English. In Orme's description of Cranmer's communion service of 1552, something caught my eye. In explaining the details of early Anglican communion and the conceptual framework behind it, Orme says:

The minister and his assistants received communion first, bread then wine, the bread now being required to be 'such as is usual to be eaten at the table...but the best and purest white bread that conveniently may be gotten.' This bread was broken or sliced into pieces and if anything was left over, the priest was authorised to take it home for his personal use, along with any superfluous wine. The bread in this form was intended to represent the Last Supper more realistically and to emphasize (like the secular use of the bread and wine) that the elements were not consecrated. For the same reason, when the priest gave them out to the congregation, a piece of the bread was put into the hands of each worshiper, not into the mouth as before. The words of administration were changed to make the same point: 'Take and eat this, in remembrance that Christ died for thee, and feed on him in thy heart by faith, with thanksgiving.' (Orme, 381).

Anglican communion in the hand was mandated in the Prayer Book of 1552 specifically to disabuse congregants of any belief in the Real Presence. Orme lumps this in with three other similar changes: the use of common bread "such as is usual to be eaten at the table," the priest's encouragement to take the leftover elements home, and the altered words of administration, all of which were mean "to emphasize...that the elements were not consecrated." Communion in the hand was one of a slew of changes deliberately instituted to undermine belief in the Real Presence.

I am not suggesting the architects of Catholic communion in the hand had the exact same motives as Cranmer, but the fact remains that symbols mean things; they convey objective messages about what we believe and how we act those beliefs out ritually. The deliberate altering of long-established symbolic actions will result in a corresponding shift in what we be believe we are doing (see my recent article "Our Barren Garden of Symbols"). The Anglican reformers clearly understood this principle, which is why Cranmer's 1552 order mandated communion in the hand as deliberate gesture to erode belief in Transubstantiation.

The single greatest thing our bishops could do to bolster belief in the Real Presence is mandate communion kneeling on the tongue. Why don't our own bishops understand what was so plainly evident to the likes of Thomas Cranmer?