MATINS AT ELEVEN
[To the Editor of THE SPECTATOR.] SIR, —I feel constrained as the result of my own parochial experience to support Janus in his contention that there are many English people who would attend Morning Prayer and Sermon at t t o'clock in their parish Church who will not attend a Choral Eucharist at that hour unless they wish to communicate. In a number of cases they have no wish to communicate either because they have communicated at an earlier hour or because their custom is to communicate monthly or three times a year or else because they are not communicants at all.
It is quite true that in the time of Justin Martyr (A.D. 150) all Christians were glad to communicate every Sunday morning. Today it ought to be recognised that there are many Christian English people who are not desirous of communicating every Sunday and who therefore do not feel disposed to attend a Service in their Parish Church which is intended for communi- cants only. In the Roman Catholic Church, where those assisting at Mass are not, in the great majority of cases, expected to communicate, the situation is quite different. In the pre- Reformation Church the vast majority of the laity only com- municated once a year.
In not a few country churches the substitution of the Choral Eucharist for Morning Prayer and Sermon at II a.m. has given deep offence to many parishioners and has, as they would put it, driven them from their Parish Church."
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