Sharing the Cup

At our recent diocesan clergy conference, we talked about how we should respond to the flu pandemic. I suspect that we will be hearing from the bishop soon about some changes in the way we share the Lord's Supper that respond to health concerns.
With that in mind, I find Maggi Dawn's reflections on this interesting:

I washed my hands, several times. We poured just one mouthful of wine into the Chalice. We made the usual Eucharistic prayer, and I gave out the wafers. 

The easy thing would be for me, as President, to drink the mouthful of wine myself, but although I am sacramentally minded about the Eucharist, I also feel strongly that the symbolism must embrace the idea of the priesthood of all believers. There's a delicate balance to keep between all celebrating and one presiding, the appointment of one pair of hands to maintain respectful understanding of the feast, while not promoting the President into an ontological superiority. Consequently in the practice of the ritual I constantly try to step into the back row and see just how inclusive it feels.

Long story short: in a Pandemic situation, to embrace the idea of sharing the feast while only one may drink the wine, instead of it being the president who drinks, we are designating one person each week to receive the chalice and drink the mouthful of wine for all of us. It seemed to work out well. Until someone pointed out over breakfast that we were eating crossants from the same serving plate and tea from the same teapot...

via maggidawn.typepad.com