Material Elements, Spiritual Communion

SQLservant said:

This may receive more answers in OBOB than here, but here goes anyway:

Is it a good or prudent thing, by your reckoning, to use bread and wine during an Act of Spiritual Communion, with the full understanding that it is not sacramental Communion and without any pretense of a Eucharistic "consecration" of these elements? Is this a good and pious act, or does it run close to replacing the Eucharist, or is there something about it in the Ecumenical Councils that I'm unfamiliar with? Would you do it?

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SQLservant said:

I see. I had been under the impression that spiritual communion was a relevant devotional practice in Anglicanism due to its presence in the ECUSA's 1951 Armed Forces Prayer Book, as well as a similar order devised by a bishop in Melanesia sometime in the last century.

I note, however, as I type this, that both of the intended audiences (soldiers and missionaries) are often in situations where the Eucharist cannot be celebrated due to lack of clergy, rather than other reasons, making that a bad assumption.

Such being the case, would there be anything to prevent spiritual communion, with or without "elements," as a private devotional practice?

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SQLservant said:

This may receive more answers in OBOB than here, but here goes anyway:

Is it a good or prudent thing, by your reckoning, to use bread and wine during an Act of Spiritual Communion, with the full understanding that it is not sacramental Communion and without any pretense of a Eucharistic "consecration" of these elements? Is this a good and pious act, or does it run close to replacing the Eucharist, or is there something about it in the Ecumenical Councils that I'm unfamiliar with? Would you do it?

Click to expand...

Albion said:

I'd read the Order for Morning Prayer and forget about the notion of spiritual Communion. No offense to those who think otherwise, but for me it's either the Lord's Supper or it's not.

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