Interchurch families will be grateful to Archbishop Bernard Longley for his statement that pastoral provisions for Eucharistic sharing ‘deserve to be much better-known and more effectively used’ (“Together yet apart”, 24 January).
But many will also feel that it is by now surely time to move on from the 1998 provisions in One Bread One Body, which allow admission to communion on rare occasions for other Christians who share both baptism and marriage with Catholics.
For some members of their extended families – and indeed, for some couples – occasional sharing may be enough, and it is good that this can happen. But marriage signifies a one-flesh, one-body relationship, a unity not of identity but of communion, reflecting the love of Christ for his Church, a communion in the Spirit drawing the partners together into the relationship of the Son with the Father.
Marriage is not a matter of special occasions, but an on-going commitment to the daily sharing of their baptismal faith and life with one another and their children. In this exceptional relationship it would be good if baptised Christians could be made aware that they may ask to receive Holy Communion alongside their partners on an ongoing basis.
At a time when the Catholic Church is reflecting on how marriages can be spiritually strengthened, this would seem an obvious way forward. And not difficult for people to understand; as has been said: if a couple can receive together on Saturday [at their wedding], why should they be forbidden to on Sunday?
Ruth Reardon, Turvey, Bedford
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