Communion of the Sick (1928 BCP)

Communion of the Sick (1928 BCP) is the office in the 1928 American Book of Common Prayer for administering Holy Communion to a sick person who cannot attend the public ministration in church. It belongs among the Occasional Offices (1928 BCP), after the Thanksgiving of Women after Child-birth (1928 BCP) and the Visitation and Unction material, and before the Burial offices.

The rite applies the Church's eucharistic worship to illness, old age, bed-ridden weakness, and danger of death. It does not make sickness a private sacramental world separate from the parish. Rather, it directs the sick person toward regular Communion in the congregation when possible, provides a form for Communion in the house when necessary, and gives explicit pastoral instruction when sacramental reception with the mouth is prevented by extremity or other just impediment.

Place in the Occasional Offices

The Communion of the Sick follows the Visitation of the Sick material and therefore assumes the same pastoral setting: prayer, examination, repentance, absolution, comfort, healing, and readiness for death. It is eucharistic, but it is not detached from the ministry of the Word and from pastoral care of the conscience.

The opening rubric gives the theological reason for the office. Human life is fragile, and Christians should not defer sacramental repentance and Communion until the last possible moment.

Forasmuch as all mortal men are subject to many sudden perils, diseases and sicknesses, and ever uncertain what time they shall depart out of this life.

The Prayer Book therefore tells ministers to exhort parishioners, "especially in the time of pestilence, or other infectious sickness," to receive Holy Communion often when it is publicly administered in church. Sick-room Communion is a pastoral provision for necessity, not a substitute for ordinary participation in the parish Eucharist.

Notice and Household Celebration

If the sick person cannot come to church but desires Communion in the house, the office requires timely notice to the minister and asks how many persons will communicate with the sick person. This detail is more than administration. The sick communicant is not treated as spiritually isolated; the rite still seeks a gathered act of Holy Communion.

But if the sick person be not able to come to the Church, and yet is desirous to receive the Communion in his house; then he must give timely notice to the Minister, signifying also how many there are to communicate with him.

The minister is then to celebrate Holy Communion with the appointed Collect, Epistle, and Gospel for the sick before proceeding into the Communion office. The form is therefore not merely a delivery of consecrated elements; it is a liturgical ministration of Word, prayer, consecration, and Communion.

Collect for the Sick Communicant

The first appointed Collect asks God to have mercy on the sick person, to give patience in sickness, to restore bodily health if it be God's will, and finally to present the soul without spot before God.

Almighty, everliving God, Maker of mankind, who dost correct those whom thou dost love, and chastise every one whom thou dost receive.

The collect's language is not a simple equation of illness with punishment. It speaks in the biblical vocabulary of fatherly correction and reception, then asks for mercy, patience, health if God wills, and a holy death. The prayer holds together healing and mortality: recovery is sought, but salvation is the greater horizon.

The alternate Collect has a more explicit healing emphasis:

O Lord, holy Father, by whose loving-kindness our souls and bodies are renewed; Mercifully look upon this thy servant.

Together, the collects prevent two opposite errors. They do not reduce the office to physical recovery, and they do not make bodily healing irrelevant. The sick person's body and soul are both placed under God's mercy.

Appointed Epistles

The first appointed Epistle is Hebrews 12:5. It interprets suffering through the Lord's fatherly discipline and warns the sick person not to faint under rebuke.

My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him.

The alternate Epistle, 1 John 5:13-15, gives assurance to those who believe on the Son of God and teaches prayer according to God's will.

These things have I written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God; that ye may know that ye have eternal life.

The two lessons belong together pastorally. Hebrews teaches patient endurance under God's hand; 1 John teaches confidence in Christ and prayer governed by God's will. Communion of the Sick is therefore neither despair before suffering nor presumption about healing.

Appointed Gospels

The first appointed Gospel is John 5:24. It gives the sick person Christ's promise that faith passes from death unto life.

He that heareth my word, and believeth on him that sent me, hath everlasting life, and shall not come into condemnation.

The alternate Gospel is John 6:47-51, where Christ identifies himself as the bread of life.

I am the living bread which came down from heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live for ever.

These Gospel readings are directly suited to sick-room Communion. The communicant is not given vague comfort, but Christ's own promise of everlasting life, deliverance from condemnation, and the bread that gives life to the world.

Relation to Holy Communion

After the appointed Collect, Epistle, and Gospel, the minister proceeds according to the ordinary form for Holy Communion (1928 BCP), beginning with "Ye who do truly," the invitation to repentance and charity. The sick office therefore depends on the same eucharistic theology as the regular Communion service.

St. Paul's warning about unworthy reception stands behind this pastoral shape. The sick communicant is not hurried past examination, confession, and absolution simply because the situation is urgent.

Let a man examine himself, and so let him eat of that bread, and drink of that cup.

The office therefore joins eucharistic comfort to eucharistic discipline. It teaches the minister to bring the sacrament promptly and mercifully, but also to preserve the apostolic pattern of self-examination, repentance, and faithful reception.

The Prayer of Consecration asks that communicants may receive the sacrament according to Christ's institution and be partakers of his Body and Blood:

Hear us, O merciful Father, we most humbly beseech thee; and grant that we, receiving these thy creatures of bread and wine, according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy institution, in remembrance of his death and passion, may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood.

The Prayer of Humble Access gives the proper disposition for sick and healthy communicants alike:

We do not presume to come to this thy Table, O merciful Lord, trusting in our own righteousness, but in thy manifold and great mercies.

This connection matters. The sick communicant receives the same sacrament as the congregation: not a private charm against death, but the Holy Communion of Christ's Body and Blood, received with repentance, faith, thanksgiving, and humble trust in divine mercy.

Order of Communion and Shortened Form

At the distribution, the minister first receives Communion, then ministers to those appointed to communicate with the sick, and last of all to the sick person. The order preserves the ordinary ministerial and communal shape of Holy Communion, even in the constrained circumstances of a sick-room.

The 1928 office also provides a shortened form when circumstances make it expedient:

The Confession and the Absolution; Lift up your hearts, etc., through the Sanctus; The Prayer of Consecration.

The abbreviated rite is carefully chosen. It keeps confession and absolution, the Sursum Corda and Sanctus, consecration, humble access, Communion, the Lord's Prayer, and blessing. The Prayer Book allows pastoral brevity without reducing the rite to informality.

Confession and Absolution

For the shortened form, the 1928 BCP provides a concise confession and absolution. The confession names sin "in thought, word, and deed" and pleads for mercy according to God's goodness.

O Almighty Father, Lord of heaven and earth, we confess that we have sinned against thee in thought, word, and deed.

The absolution asks for remission of sins, true repentance, amendment of life, and the consolation of the Holy Spirit.

The Almighty and merciful Lord grant you Absolution and Remission of all your sins, true repentance, amendment of life, and the grace and consolation of his Holy Spirit.

This is the pastoral grammar of the whole office. The sick person is not merely comforted emotionally; the minister calls for repentance, declares God's mercy, and administers the sacrament to one who comes in faith.

Spiritual Reception When Communion Is Impeded

One of the most important rubrics addresses the case in which the sick person cannot receive the Sacrament with the mouth because of extremity of sickness, lack of timely warning, or another just impediment. The minister is to instruct the sick person that true repentance, steadfast faith in Christ crucified, remembrance of his benefits, and hearty thanksgiving are not fruitless.

He doth eat and drink the Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ profitably to his soul's health, although he do not receive the Sacrament with his mouth.

This rubric is a major Anglican pastoral text. It maintains the real importance of sacramental Communion while refusing to bind Christ's saving mercy to outward reception when reception is impossible. It also defines the spiritual act in strongly evangelical terms: repentance, faith in Christ's death, remembrance of his benefits, and thanksgiving.

Anglican Doctrine

Classical Anglican doctrine names the Lord's Supper as one of the two Sacraments of the Gospel. Article XXV distinguishes it from rites "commonly called Sacraments," and Article XXVIII identifies the Supper as a sacrament of redemption by Christ's death.

The Supper of the Lord is not only a sign of the love that Christians ought to have among themselves one to another; but rather is a Sacrament of our Redemption by Christ's death.

Article XXVIII continues by teaching that the Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper only after a heavenly and spiritual manner. Communion of the Sick applies that doctrine pastorally. The office assumes that Holy Communion is a true sacramental means appointed by Christ, while also teaching that faithful reception is not a mechanical act. Its impeded-reception rubric is therefore not a denial of the sacrament, but a pastoral application of the Article's insistence that the means whereby the Body of Christ is received and eaten is faith.

Pastoral and Catechetical Use

In parish teaching, the office should be explained from its own rubrics and readings: frequent public Communion, timely notice when a sick person cannot attend church, Communion in the house with other communicants when possible, Scripture for patience and assurance, confession and absolution, and careful instruction when actual reception is impossible.

The rite also belongs with Visitation of the Sick (1928 BCP), Absolution of the Sick (1928 BCP), Anointing of the Sick and Anglican Tradition, Holy Communion (1928 BCP), and Burial of the Dead (1928 BCP). It shows the Prayer Book's pastoral realism: sickness is faced without sentimentality, death is named without evasion, and the sick person is directed to Christ crucified, risen, and given to his Church in Word and Sacrament.

See Also

• Book of Common Prayer (1928)
• Occasional Offices (1928 BCP)
• Holy Communion (1928 BCP)
• Visitation of the Sick (1928 BCP)
• Absolution of the Sick (1928 BCP)
• Anointing of the Sick and Anglican Tradition
• Communion of the Sick Rubrics (1928 BCP)
• Burial of the Dead (1928 BCP)

External Links

• The Visitation and Communion of the Sick in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer
• The 1928 Book of Common Prayer