An evangelical would hopefully frame the answer differently and would echo the Apostle Paul's emphasis in 2 Timothy that it is the power of the biblical gospel that keeps the minister of the gospel going when the going gets tough (your curate personally finds February a difficult month ministerially and would even if we were in the middle of a revival).
That note of gospel dependency is sounded right at the start of the letter when Paul exhorts Timothy not to be
ashamed of testifying to our Lord, nor of me his prisoner but share in suffering for the gospel in the power of God, who saved us and called us with a holy calling, not in virtue of our works but in virtue of his own purpose and the grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus ages ago (2 Timothy 1v8-9 - RSV).So, what sustains our morale is the gospel of our eternal salvation by God's free grace, which is independent of our ministerial efforts. If our salvation were so dependent, how on earth could any of us keep going in gospel ministry?
However, given that Holy Communion is the sacrament of the gospel to be received repeatedly by the Christian until the Lord returns (unlike Baptism which we usually receive once), cc for one would not entirely dissent from his colleague's reply. What greater gospel morale booster can there be than to be reminded, in the words of the Book of Common Prayer, of 'the full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction' that the Lord Jesus Christ made on the Cross for the 'sins of the whole world'?
The added advantage of Holy Communion for the minister of the gospel is that someone is very unlikely to say on the door afterwards: 'Good consecration, vicar.'
"Good consecration, Vicar" - as opposed to "Good Sermon", presumably. The point is that the efficacy of the sacraments are not dependent on the minister in any way (as ancient Christian orthodoxy teaches us), and while I avoid all labels, myself ("Anglo-Catholic", "Evangelical" "conservative" and - God forbid - "Liberal") the constant (not once; CC is right, of course)receiving of the sacrament, Lord's Supper, h. communion, etc., is indeed the manna that prevents us fainting in this dark "wilderness of the world" (as I fancy Pilgrim's Progress begins).
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