Brown Communion Hosts

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They look like that there were “home-made” and, perhaps baked too long. they may be made from whole wheat flour (which is perfectly ok).
 
During a recent trip to Bavaria I found that all the hosts in that area are “brown” (darker than tan but not dark brown) , and much thicker than in the US or Japan where I am familiar. Clearly color is not an issue.

W.Unland
 
CatholicLife said:
Does it matter what color the Communion Host is?
flickr.com/photos/catholicsun/5140552188/
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I believe they should be OK. White bread is made by removing the bran and germ from the flour. Various chemicals are then added to bleach the flour to make it white. The matter required by the Latin Church is unleavened wheat bread. No mention of colour is made. Brown bread is made from wheat. You could make the case that it’s purer. White bread has quite a range of additives: the nutrients lost by removing the bran and germ are added to white flour plus it is treated with several chemicals to make it white. Of course, no yeast must added so that it remains unleavened.
 
No, it doesn’t matter. Our parish has used what appear to be whole wheat Communion wafers for as long as I can remember. They are made of unleavened wheat and water only:
Code: 
Canon 924 §2.

    The bread must be only wheat and recently made so that there is no danger of spoiling.

    The instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum further specifies:

    [48.] The bread used in the celebration of the Most Holy Eucharistic Sacrifice must be unleavened, purely of wheat, and recently made so that there is no danger of decomposition. It follows therefore that bread made from another substance, even if it is grain, or if it is mixed with another substance different from wheat to such an extent that it would not commonly be considered wheat bread, does not constitute valid matter for confecting the Sacrifice and the Eucharistic Sacrament. It is a grave abuse to introduce other substances, such as fruit or sugar or honey, into the bread for confecting the Eucharist. Hosts should obviously be made by those who are not only distinguished by their integrity, but also skilled in making them and furnished with suitable tools.


    [jimmyakin.typepad.com/defenso...istic_bre.html](http://jimmyakin.typepad.com/defenso...istic_bre.html)
 
I don’t think it matters at all what color the hosts are as long as they are made of unleavened bread. My old parish has been using whole wheat hosts for as long as I can remember and my new parish is using the same kind now. They are darker in color than plain white hosts, but they are licit. 🙂
 
Most parishes I know of seem to prefer the whole wheat hosts (which tend to be a darker color often with flecks of the wheat bran) over the bleached white hosts that were popular when I was a child back in the 1960s.

Both are perfectly fine for use at Mass.

In my experience the bleached hosts dissolve very easily (much like white bread) and the whole wheat hosts don’t.

I think the white hosts were popular when no chewing of the host was something that every First Communion child was taught. Whole wheat hosts are more substantial and may *require *chewing.
 
Yup, whole wheat bread is more brown in appearance. But its still wheat bread, therefore valid matter
 
Symbolically, I would prefer white. It’s symbolises purity and cleanliness. I’d also prefer not to chew the Host. It’s the King of Kings.
 
Layman said:
Symbolically, I would prefer white. It’s symbolises purity and cleanliness. I’d also prefer not to chew the Host. It’s the King of Kings.
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But you swallow anyway 🤷

Jesus himself said:

[BIBLEDRB]John 6:56[/BIBLEDRB]

There’s nothing wrong to eat as if its food because it is food.
 
Phemie said:
Homemade altar bread. I’ve baked that before. Just water and whole wheat or unbleached flour – that one’s whole wheat – mixed, kneaded, shaped and baked. It’s sweet and chewy. I prefer it to hosts but a lot of people don’t like it.
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Looks like posphora (leavened bread used in the Byzantine Rite)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Patene-byzantine.jpg

Were the communicants caught by surprise by the different appearance of bread?
 
ConstantineTG said:
Looks like posphora (leavened bread used in the Byzantine Rite)
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Patene-byzantine.jpg

Were the communicants caught by surprise by the different appearance of bread?
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In one parish I baked it every week, so they were used to it. We had to tell them they could chew, though, because some people just tried to deal with it as with a regular host. The pastor at the time couldn’t believe that some people had been taught never to chew the Host.

Another parish used it only for Holy Thursday and the people who rarely came to church were usually caught by surprise. Again the information that they could chew had to be given.

I
 
Phemie said:
In one parish I baked it every week, so they were used to it. We had to tell them they could chew, though, because some people just tried to deal with it as with a regular host. The pastor at the time couldn’t believe that some people had been taught never to chew the Host.
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Yes, when I was young it was common to tell kids not to chew or else Jesus might say “ouch” (in Filipino). Sounds crazy but if you think about it, its a good way to teach the Real Presence to kids since it did imprint in our minds that what is received is indeed Jesus.
Phemie said:
Another parish used it only for Holy Thursday and the people who rarely came to church were usually caught by surprise. Again the information that they could chew had to be given.
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Do you need permission from the Bishop to use home made bread?
 
ConstantineTG said:
Do you need permission from the Bishop to use home made bread?
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No. You just have to be careful to bake valid matter so it’s better to get a recipe from the Conference of Bishops. In one parish I was given a recipe that I now know produced illicit matter. Nobody seemed to know the difference there.

This line in Redemptionis Sacramentum *

It follows therefore that bread made from another substance, even if it is grain, or if it is mixed with another substance different from wheat to such an extent that it would not commonly be considered wheat bread, does not constitute valid matter for confecting the Sacrifice and the Eucharistic Sacrament.

*leaves me a little comforted that it was valid, if illicit. There was no doubt in anyone’s mind that what was made was bread.
 
CatholicLife said:
Does it matter what color the Communion Host is?
flickr.com/photos/catholicsun/5140552188/
Click to expand...
Ok, I guess I’ll be the police this time. This bread sure looks quite thick to be in fact unleavened, about a half inch or more according to the picture. Father Caropi has been quite vocal about using home baked bread for the celebration of the Eucharist. Improper matter nullifies the sacrement, not just an ilicit action, the Eucharistic celebration would be invalid if the matter is not proper. Why allow the chance of this?🤷

Color is less an issue than matter, I think everyone agrees. The communion host we use are tan, deffinitely not white. These are made at a Catholic Monestary for the Catholic Mass.

We had one parish in our diocese that made their own Eucharistic bread until our current bishop took over. It quickly ended.
 
Lapey said:
Ok, I guess I’ll be the police this time. This bread sure looks quite thick to be in fact unleavened, about a half inch or more according to the picture. Father Caropi has been quite vocal about using home baked bread for the celebration of the Eucharist. Improper matter nullifies the sacrement, not just an ilicit action, the Eucharistic celebration would be invalid if the matter is not proper. Why allow the chance of this?🤷
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If you’ve ever made leavened and unleavened bread, you’d know that that is exactly what unleavened bread looks like, and that leavening will puff bread up way higher than half an inch. So I don’t know what you mean by “allowing the chance of this” – if you don’t put in any leavening, there’s a 0% chance of having leavened bread. (And even if you did, it would still be valid matter.) This bread looks perfectly fine.
 
ConstantineTG said:
But you swallow anyway 🤷

Jesus himself said:

[BIBLEDRB]John 6:56[/BIBLEDRB]

There’s nothing wrong to eat as if its food because it is food.
Click to expand...
Your quote didn’t show in my browser. It’s blank.

I see it as a matter of courtesy. Why chew if you don’t have to? Possibly another useful development in our rite dumped in the flight towards novelty(?) i.e. why revert to coarse bread when you can make light, easy to swallow bread? 🤷

As other posters on this topic mention, they were told by their religious instructors not to chew it. If only, perhaps, to avoid the sight of squadrons of 7-year-olds chomping on the King of Kings at their First Holy Communion.
 
Layman said:
Your quote didn’t show in my browser. It’s blank.

I see it as a matter of courtesy. Why chew if you don’t have to? Possibly another useful development in our rite dumped in the flight towards novelty(?) i.e. why revert to coarse bread when you can make light, easy to swallow bread? 🤷

As other posters on this topic mention, they were told by their religious instructors not to chew it. If only, perhaps, to avoid the sight of squadrons of 7-year-olds chomping on the King of Kings at their First Holy Communion.
Click to expand...
Constantine’s quotation was John 6:56, “For my flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed.”

Incidentally, the the Greek word which is usually translated “eat” in the phrase “eat my body”, trogein, literally means “gnaw,” “munch,” “chomp on.” It’s not a dainty “ingest.” He really said, “Gnaw on my flesh.”
 
Was that statement made by Jesus prior to the Last Supper?

John 6:50* "This is the bread which cometh down from heaven; that if any man eat of it, he may not die. "*

I think I’ll pass on the gnawing. I am grateful that the churches I’m familiar with use old-fashioned Communion hosts which melt in the mouth. Much easier for me to consume in peace: spiritual and physical.
 
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