Resolution and Remote Real Presence: How Does Preaching Relate to the Eucharist in Remote Worship?

Abstract

Liturgical renewal has emphasized the partnership of preaching and Eucharist. What does this partnership look like in the new reality of remote preaching and worship? The church has largely ignored this partnership in conversations about remote worship. Official statements treat preaching as necessary while discouraging or forbidding remote celebrations of the Eucharist. The work of pre-pandemic theologians to foster this partnership suggests that not only is remote Eucharist possible, but it is preferable to holding remote worship without Eucharist. This article makes that claim, emphasizing preaching and Eucharist as two pieces of a single liturgical action. In doing so, it breaks with theologians who emphasized the partnership between preaching and Eucharist before the pandemic but have opposed remote Eucharist once it was being practiced widely.