Wednesday, July 27th, 2005
Someone’s asked me about the origins of intinction as a practice. (Dipping the bread into the wine during communion).
From my research, intinction was introduced in the Eastern churches and is still the norm in the Maronite Church (originally based in Antioch, Syria). Many Eastern Orthodox churches use intinction. The practice there is for the priest to break the bread into pieces which are put into the cup. The mixture is ladled into the mouths of participants with a spoon/ladle.
Intinction must have been a common innovation in the Western church, judging by the number of condemnations of the practice from Rome.
From Pontifications, a Catholic blog:
“In 675 the Fourth Council of Braga prohibited the dipping of the holy bread into the chalice:
“The practice of giving the people eucharistic communion by means of intinction has no authority in the gospel, where he gave his disciples his body and blood: the bread was given separately and the cup was given separately. We read that Christ gave intincted bread to no one except to that disciple whom he revealed as a traitor by offering him a morsel that had been dipped.”
This prohibition of intinction was reiterated in the Middle Ages by the Councils of Clermont (1095) and London (1175).
“This use is not authentic,” Bernold of Constance wrote, “for it is contrary to the institution of the Lord” (11th c.). Pope Pascal II denounced the intinctio panis as a human innovation that violated the command of Christ (12th c.)”
Intinction has been allowed again in the Roman Catholic Church, but only by the priest.
So does anyone know about the development of intinction as a practice in Protestant churches? When are your first memories of its use?
Tags: Catholicism, Eastern Orthodox, sacraments, Worship
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Tuesday, July 5th, 2005
Spent the day yesterday with an Assembly task group of the Uniting Church in Australia, looking at the issues surrounding ’specififed ministries’. We’ve been meeting for a year now, providing resources for a conversation.
We’ve asked questions like:
Why do we ordain some people?
Who do only some people preside at communion and baptism?
What�s the difference between a Lay Pastor and a Community Minister?
How are we different from other churches?
How do we best order our ministry?
Are we letting too many lay people preside at the sacraments?
What are your questions and ideas?
As a task group we have idealists and pragmatists. We have people who are deeply committed to maintaining ordained ministry as a category, and people who would be happy without it. We have a denomination with ordained Ministers of the Word, ordained Deacons, commissioned Youth Workers, Lay Pastors, Community Ministers, Lay Preachers, and Lay Celebrants of the Sacraments. As we work our way through this quagmire I’ve noticed a few emerging principles:
- Simplicty - people shouldn’t have to jump endless hurdles to be in ministry. The body should be able to act smoothly.
- Impact on the church - we’re not keen to unleash ‘fruitloops’ on the church
- Partnership with the wider church - nurturing our connection with denominations that have a ‘higher view’ of ordination while developing a partnership with ‘more relaxed’ denominations.
- Accountability and Support - we ordain people who carry responsibility for leading the Church’s ministry and mission and are accountable to the whole church, and we commission people who carry responsibility within the Uniting Church only.
The documents and discussion papers are being released at the Conversation 05 web site:
http://assembly.uca.org.au/converse/
Tags: sacraments, Uniting Church
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Monday, June 20th, 2005
Spent Saturday morning training four members of Pacific Parks Uniting Lay Ministry team - with a focus on the Eucharist. I’m ordained as a minister but in my local church I’m part of a ‘lay ministry team’. The Uniting Church in Australia in 1995 made provision for lay presidency of communion and baptism in situations like ours where we celebrate the sacraments in house churches without relying on a ‘Rev’ to be there.
We spent the first half of the morning looking at the sacraments from a Uniting Church perspective. According to the Basis of Union, a sacrament is a visible act that proclaims the gospel, given as a norm by Jesus, through which Jesus acts through the Holy Spirit. We looked at the two symbolic acts Jesus explicity told his disciples to carry out, but made a note of the many sacramental actions that we see pointing to the gospel as well. We looked at the ways in which Christ acts in our worship, noting that an action sheet for a worship experience may have action from the leaders, action from the participants, but always action from the Holy Spirit.
The second half of the morning we spent looking at a traditional communion service, working through the Uniting In Worship service. At first glance it looks like a hymn sandwich. But as we explored the meaning behind the rubrics we found ways we could develop a relaxed, relational and relevant experience of the Lord’s Supper that holds the richness of two thousand years of litrugy. We noted the freedom throughout Uniting in Worship for the local people to choose what kind of bread and grape juice (fermented or unfermented) they’ll use. There’s freedom about who distributes the elements.
One interesting point of theological reflection was the place of the confession. Traditional Presbyterian understandings of communion tend towards a feeling that only the worthy should take part in communion. It’s an interpretation of Paul’s warning to the Corinthians not to participate unworthily. I believe, with Gordon Fee, that Paul is referring to the relational side of the communion services in Corinth, not to the individual sense of worth. We need to take care that our experience of the eucharist really does reflect our prayer that the Holy Spirit will make us one.
Some of us grew up with an approach that said we could not take part in communion until we really understood what it was all about. This interpretation of Paul’s phrase,”discerning the body” in 1 Corinthians 11 assumes he is talking about the bread being the body of Christ. But what if he’s talking about us being the body of Christ? Discerning the body in this case means we should take care to be inclusive rather than exclusive. Our inclusion of children from an early age fits with the latter approach. Knowing that ‘Jesus loves me’ and following in his way is a simple enough grasp of the communion service.
Gordon D. Fee, The New International Commentary on the New Testament: The First Epistle to the Corinthians,, Eerdmans, 1987.
Tags: Emerging Church, sacraments, Spirituality, Theology, Uniting Church
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