The longstanding tradition of the historic, liturgical Church is that the Eucharist is the appropriate way to celebrate the Lord’s Day (i.e., Sunday). To this the Orthodox and Copts have always held, as have the Catholics (but see below), the Disciples of Christ has done it from the beginning of their separate denominational existence, and it has become the virtually universal practice among Anglicans and Lutherans presuming a priest/pastor is available. Many “mainstream Protestant” churches are moving in the direction of a more frequent if not weekly Eucharist; Alan Smithee may have some notes on this.
In Catholicism, there grew a piety which found a salvific and sanctifying action in the celebration of the Eucharist itself, irrespective of the receiving of the elements in communion, and as a result, daily Eucharists became common, with priests encouraged to celebrate daily. It would be remarkably easy to deem this as superstitious, and I’d appreciate a good active Catholic speaking of the sense of piety that finds this frequency as beneficial, because I will not be able to do it justice.
On the other foot, the question of what took Protestant groups generally away from the weekly celebration of the Eucharist is an important one to raise.
And the answer is nearly as bizarre as St. Liebowitz’s grocery list.
Much of the Reformation was a lay movement, though of course ordained leaders spearheaded it. And it was followed by the Age of Exploration and the founding of new colonies. Both situations led to the following:
[ul][li]The extravagant claims made for the Mass in the medieval church were being debunked.[/li][li]Devout Christians were quite likely to be in places where there was not a clergy person of their belief, except occasionally on an itinerant basis.[/li][li]Devout people were becoming familiar with the form of the Divine Office, the originally-monastic service of Scripture readings, Canticles, and prayers that was done several times a day. In particular, Cranmer’s unification of the seven short Offices into two longer ones, for Morning and Evening, contributed to this.[/li][li]With the “priesthood of all believers,” the line between clergy and laity blurred, and laymen began to lead worship regularly.[/li][/ul]
The net result of all this was a church program where the Morning Office was read regularly, generally with preaching, by a local chuch leader, and the clergyman passing through once every few months celebrated the Eucharist.
And, of course, nothing prescribed by law is quite so firmly ensconced as “the way we’ve always done it” – no matter why that way started.
The net result was a sense among many Protestants, when they ended up with churches with full time clergy, that the Eucharist was something to be done seldom – that doing it often in some way trivialized it – and that the proper Sunday-go-to-meetin’ thing was a service based roughly on Cranmer’s Morning Prayer, with the clergyman improvising on it ad lib, concluding with a good solid sermon. Communion was to be done seldom, to preserve its sanctity.
Only within my own lifetime has that viewpoint started to change.
