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Summary
- Catholics cannot celebrate the Eucharist at home without a priest (canon 900), but deacons and appointed lay ministers may bring Communion to the house (canon 910); Catholics who cannot receive can make a spiritual communion.
- Orthodox churches reserve consecrated Gifts “for the sick,” and the 1928 Book of Common Prayer has a Communion of the Sick for a priest to celebrate in a home.
- The Southern Baptist confession calls the Lord’s Supper “a symbolic act of obedience” by “members of the church”; Protestant churches differ on communion at home.
- A simple home order reads 1 Corinthians 11:23–26, confesses sin (1 Corinthians 11:28), prays over the bread and the cup, and gives thanks.
- The spiritual communion prayer of St Alphonsus Liguori is quoted from Lasance’s Catholic Girl’s Guide (1906), with the Prayer Book’s teaching that a sick person who cannot receive still shares in Christ’s body and blood by faith.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (John 6:35; Acts 2:46; 20:7; 1 Corinthians 10:17; 11:23–26, 28). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- Code of Canon Law (1983), canons 900 and 910. https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib4-cann879-958_en.html
- Hapgood, Isabel Florence, trans. Service Book of the Holy Orthodox-Catholic Apostolic (Greco-Russian) Church. Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin, 1906. Introduction, on the altar and the Holy Gifts “reserved for the sick.” https://archive.org/details/cu31924029363128
- The Book of Common Prayer (Protestant Episcopal Church in the U.S.A.), Standard Book of 1928. The Communion of the Sick, opening rubric, p. 321; second Collect, p. 322; shortened form, Confession, and rubric on those who cannot receive, p. 323. PDF facsimile: https://www.artisticdailyprayers.org/uploads/3/0/1/6/30164961/bcp1928std.pdf
- Southern Baptist Convention. The Baptist Faith and Message (2000), article VII, “Baptism and the Lord’s Supper.” https://bfm.sbc.net/bfm2000/
- Lasance, Francis Xavier. The Catholic Girl’s Guide: Counsels and Devotions for Girls in the Ordinary Walks of Life. New York: Benziger Brothers, 1906. “Spiritual Communion (By St. Alphonsus Liguori),” pp. 567–568. https://archive.org/details/catholicgirlsgui00lasa
- Castle, Harold. “St. Alphonsus Liguori.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 1. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1907. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01334a.htm
