Any thoughts on the practice of spiritual communion? I didn't think this was an anglican thing but I recently came across these 2 resources: 1) http://anglicanhistory.org/oceania/wood_communion1916.html 2) http://justus.anglican.org/resources/bcp/1928/AFPB_Spir_Communion.htm I didn't realize the Anglicanism had history with this
I had never heard of this before. I wonder if this is similar? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spiritual_Communion
But isn't that a little like overthrowing the sacrament from the other way around? Scripture records only one way that the faithful may commune with Our Lord's body and blood, ie, through the sacrament of the Lord' s Supper. The sacrament requires the thing signified and the sign. You can't have one without the other right? Maybe I'm nitpicking here, but can you have a baptism without water? This all seems suspect to me, theologically speaking. how can you have a sacrament without having a sacrament?
So after reading the Wiki page I stand corrected, spiritual communion has nothing to do with receiving the Body. It apparently had a long history within Rome, described thusly by a Catholic theologian (on the Wiki page): "There are some who make a spiritual communion every day with blessed bread. If we are deprived of Sacramental Communion, let us replace it, as far as we can, by spiritual communion, which we can make every moment; for we ought to have always a burning desire to receive the good God. "
It's a RC practice that has been taken up by some Anglo-Catholics. The central prayer commonly used for the act of Spiritual Communion is based on a prayer Liguori. (18th century Italian Bishop & theologian canonized towards the middle of the 19th century). I have some older Anglo-Catholic prayer books in which SC appears and have also seen a draft version of a recent Field Service Book for the British Army which gives a form for SC. I doubt that it's a common practice for the majority of Anglicans. If you've ever come across the Catholic TV channel EWTN, they have a daily Mass where viewers are encouraged to make an act of SC.
The whole thing smacks of gnosticism. "Spiritual" (code for non-material) is good. Meanwhile the crude material communion, using real "stuff" like bread and wine is not really required. This is why the Calvinist "spiritual presence" sounds hokey too. Luther's right -- Christ is either "there" somewhere in the vicinity of the consecrated bread/wine, or not. The believers' getting "lifted into the heavenlies" is just another way to say "if I ~feel~ like I'm in heaven, then that's good enough for me." This is one of the chiefest pious-sounding cruelties of low-church Protestant piety -- its virtual gnosticism. In my first pastorate, I learned that the head of the elder board was a man in his 70s who had never been baptized! When I challenged him on this, he retorted "Well, you know baptism doesn't do anything but get you wet. It's not required to be baptized to be saved!" Oy vey!