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The Restoration of the Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament for the Sick
The Restoration of the Reservation of the Blessed Sacrament for the Sick Author:John Wright Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: RESERVATION IN THE CHUKCH OF SCOTLAND. | HE advocates of Reservation find in the Church of Scotland a general and undisputed acceptance of this ancient r... more »ite. The voice of that Church, through all its history, is clear and the same. Let one who is on the spot speak of things whereof he knows. The author of Reservation of the Holy Eucharist in the Scottish Church writes: "To reserve the Blessed Sacrament for the communion of the sick has been the custom of the Scottish Church from the very earliest times. As is the case in other countries, there is no record when, or by whom, it was begun, and it was probably introduced into Scotland by the early saints who brought Christianity itself. Very general in Scotland to-day, wherever theScottish Liturgy is in use, it rests on tradition and not on any canon, and the thirteenth century statutes in which we first find it, explicitly mentioned do not prescribe, but only regulate, that which was already taken for granted, and which we know from other sources to have been in use in the Celtic Church. There is but little to be said about it, for it is a subject round which controversy has never raged in this country. A few mediaeval regulations enjoining decency and reverence in reserving, and in carrying the Eucharist to the sick, are the only authoritative pronouncements regarding it, and thus it is the actual practice of the clergy and the people that has determined the present position of the Church in regard to the whole matter. That position is simply this, that to-day Reservation for the sick is looked on merely as a natural adjunct to the act of commun- cating the laity, and nothing more; in districts removed from English influence it is as common among Low as among High Churchmen, abuses being absolutely unknown." He also adds, "...« less