Elevation of Bread and Wine During Consecration

[FrDavid96]

What possible Host could be large enough to share with several hundred people - and how long would it take to fraction it into so many pieces - and how many hard-to-manage crumbs would be created in the process? I’ve never head of such a suggestion. What was the document?

Sure, your concerns are well-founded.

Remember, it is just a suggestion. “It is desirable…”

The Church certainly realizes that this is not always practical.

GIRM
321. By reason of the sign, it is required that the material for the Eucharistic Celebration truly have the appearance of food. Therefore, it is desirable that the Eucharistic Bread, even though unleavened and made in the traditional form, be fashioned in such a way that the Priest at Mass with the people is truly able to break it into parts and distribute these to at least some of the faithful. However, small hosts are not at all excluded when the large number of those receiving Holy Communion or other pastoral reasons call for them. Moreover, the gesture of the fraction or breaking of bread, which was quite simply the term by which the Eucharist was known in apostolic times, will bring out more clearly the force and importance of the sign of the unity of all in the one bread, and of the sign of charity by the fact that the one bread is distributed among the brothers and sisters.
usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/general-instruction-of-the-roman-missal/girm-chapter-6.cfm

 

[ProVobis]

Sure, your concerns are well-founded.

Remember, it is just a suggestion. “It is desirable…”

The Church certainly realizes that this is not always practical.

GIRM
321. By reason of the sign, it is required that the material for the Eucharistic Celebration truly have the appearance of food. Therefore, it is desirable that the Eucharistic Bread, even though unleavened and made in the traditional form, be fashioned in such a way that the Priest at Mass with the people is truly able to break it into parts and distribute these to at least some of the faithful. However, small hosts are not at all excluded when the large number of those receiving Holy Communion or other pastoral reasons call for them. Moreover, the gesture of the fraction or breaking of bread, which was quite simply the term by which the Eucharist was known in apostolic times, will bring out more clearly the force and importance of the sign of the unity of all in the one bread, and of the sign of charity by the fact that the one bread is distributed among the brothers and sisters.
usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/the-mass/general-instruction-of-the-roman-missal/girm-chapter-6.cfm

FWIW, this unity is also displayed during Christmas within Polish and other communities. Each is given a full wafer (opłatek) and others break a piece of it, acknowledging the communion. (It is unconsecrated bread, of course.)