Words of Administration in Anglican Communion

The Words of Administration in Anglican Communion are the sentences said by the minister when giving the consecrated bread and wine to communicants in the Holy Communion service. In Anglican liturgy they are not incidental directions but a compact expression of eucharistic doctrine, pastoral assurance, and reverent reception. Their history in the Book of Common Prayer shows the characteristic Anglican concern to join sacramental gift with faithful participation, avoiding both a merely mechanical account of reception and a merely symbolic one.

Prayer Book development

In the first English Prayer Book of 1549, the words spoken at Communion retained a close connection with older Western liturgical forms. The minister delivered the bread with a sentence identifying it as the Body of Christ and the cup with a corresponding sentence identifying it as the Blood of Christ. The emphasis fell strongly on the sacramental gift given to the communicant.

The 1552 revision altered the formula substantially. The minister instead said words directing the communicant to take and eat in remembrance that Christ died for him, and to feed on him in the heart by faith with thanksgiving. The parallel sentence for the cup likewise emphasized remembrance, thanksgiving, and inward reception. This change reflected the Reformation concern that communicants should not receive the sacrament apart from repentance, faith, and remembrance of Christ's once-for-all sacrifice.

The Elizabethan Prayer Book of 1559 joined the two earlier forms. The minister first declared the sacramental gift and then added the words of faithful remembrance and inward feeding. This combined form was retained in the 1662 Book of Common Prayer and became one of the most influential Anglican liturgical formulas. Its structure allowed the words to bear both objective and subjective emphases: Christ is given in the sacrament, and the communicant receives rightly by faith.

Theological significance

The combined words of administration have often been read as a concise statement of the Anglican doctrine of eucharistic reception. They do not require a single scholastic theory of presence, but they rule out a bare memorialism in which Communion is only an act of human recollection. At the same time, they connect sacramental receiving with faith, thanksgiving, and remembrance of the death of Christ.

This balance is consistent with the language of the Thirty-Nine Articles, especially Article XXVIII, which teaches that the Body of Christ is given, taken, and eaten in the Supper only after a heavenly and spiritual manner, and that the means of eating is faith. The words said to each communicant are therefore both declarative and exhortatory. They proclaim Christ's gift and call the recipient to receive that gift as a believer.

The formula also has pastoral force. Because it is spoken individually, it applies the gospel promise personally without making the rite private or detached from the common action of the Church. Each communicant hears that Christ's body and blood were given and shed for him or her, while receiving within the ordered worship of the congregation.

Liturgical use

In the 1662 rite, the words are said as the bread and cup are delivered to the communicant. Traditional rubrics provide for reverent kneeling, while the Black Rubric clarifies that such kneeling is not an act of adoration directed to the sacramental elements. The words of administration therefore belong to a wider liturgical pattern of confession, absolution, consecration, humble access, reception, and thanksgiving.

Later Anglican prayer books have sometimes shortened, divided, or varied the words, especially where large congregations receive Communion. Some rites provide the older full formula, while others use briefer phrases such as "The Body of Christ" and "The Blood of Christ". Even where abbreviated forms are authorized, the Prayer Book tradition continues to shape Anglican understanding of the act of receiving Communion.

The words of administration are also significant for ecumenical and historical study. They show how Anglicanism preserved continuity with the inherited liturgy while revising that liturgy in light of Reformation teaching. Their survival in successive Prayer Books helped give Anglican eucharistic devotion a distinctive tone: scriptural, personal, sacramental, and restrained.

References

• The Book of Common Prayer (1549, 1552, 1559, and 1662 editions), Order for the Administration of the Lord's Supper or Holy Communion.
• The Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion, Article XXVIII.
• F. E. Brightman, The English Rite: Being a Synopsis of the Sources and Revisions of the Book of Common Prayer.