PRAYER BOOK REVISION
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sia,—A distinction should be drawn between permanent Reservation of the Consecrated Elements, and Reservation after the open Communion for the Elements to be taken the same day to sick communicants. It is of the latter that I write. It is contended in some quarters that those clergy who ask for Reservation do so because they feel bound to communicate fasting. Reverence is due to the consciences of those who feel this obligation. For my own part I have never taught fasting Communion, nor do I practise it ; this contention does not affect me. I believe in the necessity for Reservation for the sick, to be administered on the day of the open Communion on the lines suggested by the Bishops, for quite other reasons.
I was for a time vicar of a London parish with sixteen thousand parishioners. In pre-War days we clergy were five in number, a fairly large staff. But when our regular communicants fell into chronic sickness it was impossible to give them their Communion more frequently than at the Great Festivals. I became convinced, by experience, of the urgent need for permission to administer Communion to the sick in the manner now proposed. Had this been lawful we could have ministered in this matter quite regularly to our people in their need.
The matter is far more urgent in parishes which are severely understaffed, and in such places as Torquay (for example) where large numbers of invalids live. It is not only the time involved in having the service for the Communion of the Sick, serious as this is where many celebrations are needed. Under the existing rubrics (which seem to require Consecration at every sick communion) the priest is bound to communicate at every such service. If he communicated the sick person from the Reserved Sacrament he would not himself com- municate them, having done so at the service in Church. It is not right to require any man to communicate (perhaps) four or five times in one morning.—I am, Sir, &c.,
RUDE Dorrarus.
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