Shared communion cup

It's clearly risky to share a drinking utensil and a wiping cloth will carry infection from one wipe to the next.

In this day and age when we know so much about how infections are transmitted how can anyone in their right mind drink from a receptacle others have been drinking from?

We have little separate glasses ( Presbyterian) as they also did in the Baptist and the Uniting churches I have attended. During the pandemic we had these horrible little individual bread and wine capsules where you peeled off the layers between each sealed section- a bit like the little milks you get on aircraft. Truly vile.

At the height of the pandemic, unmasked worshippers entering a crowded church in Moscow were questioned about the wisdom of their actions. They replied that as they would be in the house of God, no infection could harm them…
My (lapsed) mother always stressed to me not to take the chalice as she had a morbid fear of TB, her sister contracting it and two very close colleagues aged 19 died from it. Best friends, they shared everything, including lipstick, which my mother thought was the last straw.
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Marydoll

*OnwardandUpward*, I hope you have learned something you didn't already know tonight.

To confuse matters even more, some priests decide to have Communion under both kinds at all masses, some at only certain Sunday masses and some not at all. There are a number of reasons for this.

We never use the term, Communion wafer, we say host. Could it be an Anglican term?
I don't really know much about the Anglican faith. In fact my friends and I once attended a Sunday service in Newcastle, thinking we were in a Catholic church. It wasn't until near the end we realised our error. It was a very uplifting service and the congregation were so welcoming. It was difficult to tell the difference.

As a High Church Anglican the bread was always called The Host. The High Church services that I attended as a teen were conducted in Latin for the Eucharist. Lent was kept, together with the Stations of the Cross. Since then having done some history concerning The Reformation (Henry VIII), this was the original style of service, very close to Roman Catholicism. Bread and wine were both taken but I can’t quite remember the wording.

Since the 16th Century, Anglicanism has taken many different forms across Europe eg. Calvinism.

Back to the OP. If I was a currently a church attendee, I certainly wouldn’t be sharing the chalice under any circumstances.

You can get any transmittable disease from a shared cup - covid, cold, flu, D&V, hepatitis, chickenpox etc etc etc Also wiping it is not enough. Organisms are transferred into the liquid from one person's mouth then swallowed by another person. If you look at the chain of infection on health care sites it shows how infections spread. Our church has individual glasses. Will not be in church a while yet as I don't think it is safe - singing and not wearing masks.

A good word for our Latin Wordle. Am I being disrespectful? PS, don't tell the others. We don't want them to beat our score

Adsum, *Marydoll^, adsum... ?

I agree with you OnwardandUpward in that we seem to have made it all so complicated. We haven't gone back to the shared chalice yet, but I know of several CofE churches that have started using individual cups - illegally, it should be said. Have thought of paying the local Methodist church a visit so can receive communion in both kinds! But for all the complications, is still v special to be with like minded folk worshipping in church. The church is the people, so I try not to get too frustrated by the regulations....

I wish it were so simple, OnwardandUpward. The Bible we read is in translation and many meanings have changed or maybe the wrong one chosen by the translators. Then it was written in a different cultural context, and we need help from scholars to understand it. I think particularly some of the stories Jesus told are tricky for this reason.
But yes, people have made too many rules and regulations, I agree, and also too many nuances which have no foundation in the Bible.

So funny about the Priest being sloshed ! ??

Yes I think a chalice is unhygenic. The symbolism of communion is the wine and the bread- as mentioned in the bible. Most things in the bible are very simple, but humans have made rules and complicated things.

I have to wonder at the man made rules and traditions, religious rules that are not mentioned in the bible. I am sure faith is supposed to be simple and child like, to follow the bible as it is written. I did actually stop going to church, to seek out the truth in the bible myself- and found it freeing.

I have just been doing some reading on this topic of the “ common cup” and it does not seem to be as clear cut as I had been led to believe. It seems that at the Passover feast there were four cups, i.e four occasions during the lengthy meal when wine was drunk. So it seems that a cup does not necessarily mean one drinking vessel. I am open to correction on this, but it seems to be confirmed in that Jews do not share a common cup. If this is true, then there is surely nothing wrong with individual cups, provided they are consecrated or blessed together.
I am not at all happy about returning to the common chalice. Before Covid, because my jagged lower teeth often wound my mouth just near my lips, I did not want to take the risk of giving or receiving infection, , so I used to dip my wafer in the wine ( intincture ) but I understand this is not allowed as finger tips could touch the wine. ( I made sure mine didn’t)

I am not religious, but have many friends who are and this issue has been discussed..IMO wiping the cup is not enough , simply transfers infection. I respect and understand how important communion is for many people - but Covid is here . It seems absolute madness to me for people to be sipping from the same cup!!!! Covid has changed the world and the church is not immune from this or the virus .

wildswan16

I've never been to Communion service where a shared cup was used. We (Church of Scotland) always go round the congregation with bread which we eat, then again with
individual glasses which we all drink together.

It’s like that in the Baptist Church too. I always thought sharing a chalice was unhygienic, because though they wiped the edge after every communicant, they used the same cloth.

OnwardandUpward

That's interesting, I've seen that done too Marydoll. I know that the priest has to consume every last drop. Personally I would not like to be in the position of having to drink after everyone in the congregation has drunk.

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Extra-ordinary ministers of the Eucharist consume what is left, not the priest, in my church. We have three Masses on a Sunday, the priest would be sloshed otherwise.
The priest's own chalice has very little wine in it.

A very dear friend of mine who was in charge of several rural churches described how he used to cycle to them on Easter Sunday, or get a friend to drive him. Polishing off the wine at the end of each service would possibly have put him over the limit as he never knew how many communicants to prepare for so always over-estimated rather than risk running out. (Well, that was his excuse for being sloshed every Easter anyway! ??)

I only have the ‘host’ as I don’t want to pass on any infection that I might have, by sipping from the chalice.

That's interesting, I've seen that done too Marydoll. I know that the priest has to consume every last drop. Personally I would not like to be in the position of having to drink after everyone in the congregation has drunk.

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OldandUpward, before the pandemic, whenever we had Communion under both species, we had four chalices to share, all blessed at the Consecration and all had to be consumed.
If any of the precious blood remained, the priest or extra-ordinary ministers of the Eucharist consumed what remained.

Being pedantic, if Jesus and his disciples drank from the same cup, that would suggest that a cup should be shared a maximum of thirteen times, suggesting that there would need to be multiple cups to serve a whole congregation.

I see no problem with having separate cups as long as the wine has first been blessed and every drop is consumed, but I am not in charge and the "powers that be" in our local church have said it's breaking the rules of the Church of England to drink from separate cups. In fact, they got angry with me for even daring to suggest it. I have stopped going there because I don't want to upset anyone and I am undecided if we believe the same things.

It's interesting to note that no Jewish family would share a cup, as we also would not share a cup with our family, normally. Interesting to hear that the Church of Scotland uses separate cups.

We have often shared communion in our home and following on from my husband and son contracted glandular fever we spent some time researching the practice.

It’s not as clear cut as some may think, see link below, but we are very comfortable in using individual drinking vessels.

www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/did-jesus-use-multiple-cups-at-the-last-supper/

Catholic theology states that obviously the body and blood of Chirst are equally present in both the bread, once it has been transformed into the Body of Christ and in the wine, once it has been transformed into His Blood.

There is therefore no neccessity for communicants to receive both. Since Vatican 2 they can do so, if they so desire, although this usually only happens at the larger church festivals, or conversely when Mass is being celebrated for a small congregation, due to the difficulty of keeping a large consecrated but unconsumed amount of wine.

For centuries prior to Vatican 2, only the celebrant - the priest who actually consecrated the bread and wine, partook of the wine, although both bridegroom and bride do so in the course of their nuptial Mass - but this is because they are actually the celebrants of the sacrament of marriage, not the priest - he is witnessing their vows, and consecrating the Eucharist.

Popular Catholic tradition holds that the wine having transformed into the Blood of Christ guards against infection, but this cannot be proved scientifically. It hardly matters, as even at a Mass where both bread and wine are offered to the congregation, you decide yourself whether you wish to partake of both, or not.

From the doctrinal point of view it makes absolutely no difference whether the wine is consumed from the same chalice or not. If it is, the chalice is wiped after each person has sipped from it - which again may well not be any very effective safeguard.

Traditionally it was thought that Christ and his disciples drank from the same cup at the Last Supper. Whether they did so or not, no-one can possibly say.

No modern Jewish family celebrating the Passover would all drink from a shared cup, and it was the Passover Jesus was celebrating, although he gave the ritual a new (and to most Jews fallacious) significance.

The Anglican and Lutheran churches will usually accept it if for health reasons you prefer only to receive either the Bread or the Wine.

individual glasses which we all drink together
That sounds like more than a sip each, wildswan!

I've never been to Communion service where a shared cup was used. We (Church of Scotland) always go round the congregation with bread which we eat, then again with
individual glasses which we all drink together.

My Anglican Church is still using the method of dipping the host into the wine. I prefer this to a shared cup. It is interesting Marydoll that your experience of a C of E church was not that different to a service within the Catholic church. That is exactly how I feel as a former Catholic but a now very happy Anglican where I have found great fellowship and friendship.

I've not been to a Methodist service ever and not a Catholic one either, but the only Easter service I watched was a Catholic one. I discovered Father Mike Schmitz by accident the week before when reading about current affairs www.youtube.com/watch?v=FcSk2257IT8 , so watched his Good Friday service out of curiosity.