That's What Catholics Do

At Rye Congregational Church we celebrate the Lord's Supper every first Sunday of the month. Typically, congregants receive the communion meal by ingesting a small waffer the size of a Tic-Tac breath mint, and Welch's grape juice served in a small thimble sized cup. The congregation remains seated while the elements are distributed.

This Sunday was different. We served communion by intinction, whereby the wafer is dipped in the cup and then received. Receiving communion by intinction was the custom of the last two churches I attended, and quickly became a much anticipated way of celebrating the sacrament for me personally. But it's so much more than personal preference.

On the rare occasion that we do serve communion by intinction at my church, we break one loaf of bread. And although we have two cups in order to accommodate the size of our congregation, there remains a sense of a common cup that is shared by many. Intinction also involves coming forward, action, response. Moreover, intinction gives certain people the privilege of serving their brothers and sisters in Christ the elements. These servers say the words, "The body of Christ broken for you" and "The blood of Christ poured out for you." These words, we must remember, are the very words of Christ as they were shared with His disciples, appropriated now by the communion servers. And if you're fortunate to know the names of the people you're serving, you address them by name. We miss so much with our passive reception of individualized wafers and cups of juice.

The above is probably best considered a theological understanding of intinction in contrast to another custom of serving communion. But maybe we need to give greater consideration to those who are unable to come forward under their own physical strength. Are we running the risk of discriminating against the elderly and physically handicapped of our congregation? The answer is no. And this is unabashedly the correct response because it is always in weakness that we dare to partake of this meal. The Lord's Supper is properly received when our frailty and humility are most apparent.

So why don't we serve communion by intinction more often? Because longstanding members of the church become terribly upset with the custom of intinction and leave the fold in search of congregations that do not coincide with the practices of the Roman Catholic Church. Sad, I know. Such is ministry in a New England congregational church.