Common Cup, Easter 2022

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 Dear friends in Christ,


Dear friends in Christ,

The Bishop of North Carolina has given permission for us to resume distributing the wine of the Eucharist in a common cup. For many if not most of us that is an integral part of our experience as Episcopalians. So it is with gladness that we receive the news.

The bishops have also expressed a strong encouragement for several things to accompany this resumption of the common cup. One is that we ought to provide a method of intinction (dipping the wafer into the wine) for those who are uncomfortable with sipping from a common chalice. The other is a strong encouragement that we not allow intinction from the chalice by individuals. If you prefer to receive the wine by intinction you should do that at the intinction station.

As a result of these directions, at the Easter Vigil this year we will resume distributing communion with the common cup (chalice). We will provide two stations for receiving the wine. One will be from a chalice and the other will be an intinction station where the wine will be in a shallow bowl. The protocol established last year for distributing wine stipulated that the intinction vessel should be wide enough that individual hands can easily move in and out of it. Also the level of wine in the vessel ought to be shallow enough that fingers will not be accidentally inserted into the wine.

As we have said throughout the pandemic, the long-standing belief in the church is that the sacramental body and blood are both received in either the bread or the wine alone. You may choose not to receive the consecrated wine.

It was one year ago on Easter that we resumed community gatherings at Saint Paul’s. We were outside in the garden area. This year there will be another new beginning with the return of the common cup. We are grateful for your patience as we learn to live into new habits as well as resuming old ones.

Faithfully,
Fr. Dale

To see a World in a Grain of Sand
And a Heaven in a Wild Flower 
Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand 
And Eternity in an hour (Blake)

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