P
PiusXIII
Guest
I know this topic has come up many times before, but in this week’s “The Catholic Weekly” (for the Saginaw, Michigan diocese) there was an article in the “Pastoral Perspective” column by a Sr. Mary Garascia, CPPS. It is noted that “Sr. Mary is pastoral administrator at Hemlock St. Mary.”
I’m going to use exact quotes from her articles. I have a few problems with some of the things she wrote and I wondered if anyone else does. Below is the article in its entirety:
As I distribute communion, a visitor notices that we consecrated some wafers (which we use for our ministry to the sick and to prisoners). She asks me to give her a wafer instead of our homemade communion bread. Our still bishop gets asked, at public meetings, to edict communion wafters because some bread recipes have other ingredients than water and wheat and because the bread is crumbly. A devout parishioner who attends Sunday liturgy faithfully at my church fasts from communion because of a severe wheat allergy.
Jesus meant the bread we share to be a sign of our unity with each other. Instead, sadly, our communion bread is a flashpoint for too many of us.
We do not know what kind of bread Jesus used at the Last Supper. Since this final meal was on Thursday and Jewish Passover would have begun on Friday evening, many Scripture scholars believe Jesus was having a regular meal with his apostles. So when he took the bread and broke it, probably it was the bread of the day, not unleavened bread. We know people ate yeast bread because yeast bread was used as an example in Jesus’ parable. We don’t know what else people of Jesus’ time may have put into their bread recipes. We can suppose that they, like we, would have added what was at hand. The Gospels mention milk and honey in connection with John the Baptist and salt, as a savor, and oil and wine.
Then, as the church moved out of its Jewish environment and spread throughout North Africa and Europe, undoubtedly regional breads were used for Eucharist. Without refrigeration, bread would be baked on the day of the Mass, or perhaps the night before. The bread blessed at a Mass would have been eaten at that Mass, as is proper today. Bread was not saved, like we do, in tabernacles. It was taken right from the altar table to the sick.
Around the 13th century, candles were placed near a metal box where the consecrated bread for the sick was placed. Then, as the theology of transubstantiation developed, and ordinary people stopped receiving Eucharist frequently, Eucharist became separated from the Mass—the act of the worshiping community because a sacred object to be venerated in chapels and churches, in tabernacles and monstrances. You could now “make a visit” and pray privately before a tabernacle. It was also important that the Eucharist be available for viaticum. So eventually dry wafers began to be used as a kind of bread that could be saved without spoiling.
Today the General Instruction for the Roman Missal (GIRM) says that the Eucharistic bread should have the appearance of food. That is because we are doing an action that is supposed to carry out Jesus’ words: “take and eat.” The late theologian Karl Rahner taught that the grace of Eucharist is given in the act of chewing and swallowing it, something we hardly do with a dissolving wafer.
Certainly some rules about recipes are needed. Otherwise we might likely have Masses using soda crackers or bagels! In a world church like ours, we want both reverence and unity in our Communion practice, but, as Jesus said, the Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Some flexibility about bread is needed. Making Eucharist bread for each Mass is pretty difficult, so we need a bread recipe that holds up to freezing.
And I can’t see Jesus wanting anyone to give up receiving Eucharist because of allergies.
Surely we can find ways to keep the liturgical unity our bishops’ desire but also meet the practical and pastoral needs of our congregations!
I’m going to use exact quotes from her articles. I have a few problems with some of the things she wrote and I wondered if anyone else does. Below is the article in its entirety:
As I distribute communion, a visitor notices that we consecrated some wafers (which we use for our ministry to the sick and to prisoners). She asks me to give her a wafer instead of our homemade communion bread. Our still bishop gets asked, at public meetings, to edict communion wafters because some bread recipes have other ingredients than water and wheat and because the bread is crumbly. A devout parishioner who attends Sunday liturgy faithfully at my church fasts from communion because of a severe wheat allergy.
Jesus meant the bread we share to be a sign of our unity with each other. Instead, sadly, our communion bread is a flashpoint for too many of us.
We do not know what kind of bread Jesus used at the Last Supper. Since this final meal was on Thursday and Jewish Passover would have begun on Friday evening, many Scripture scholars believe Jesus was having a regular meal with his apostles. So when he took the bread and broke it, probably it was the bread of the day, not unleavened bread. We know people ate yeast bread because yeast bread was used as an example in Jesus’ parable. We don’t know what else people of Jesus’ time may have put into their bread recipes. We can suppose that they, like we, would have added what was at hand. The Gospels mention milk and honey in connection with John the Baptist and salt, as a savor, and oil and wine.
Then, as the church moved out of its Jewish environment and spread throughout North Africa and Europe, undoubtedly regional breads were used for Eucharist. Without refrigeration, bread would be baked on the day of the Mass, or perhaps the night before. The bread blessed at a Mass would have been eaten at that Mass, as is proper today. Bread was not saved, like we do, in tabernacles. It was taken right from the altar table to the sick.
Around the 13th century, candles were placed near a metal box where the consecrated bread for the sick was placed. Then, as the theology of transubstantiation developed, and ordinary people stopped receiving Eucharist frequently, Eucharist became separated from the Mass—the act of the worshiping community because a sacred object to be venerated in chapels and churches, in tabernacles and monstrances. You could now “make a visit” and pray privately before a tabernacle. It was also important that the Eucharist be available for viaticum. So eventually dry wafers began to be used as a kind of bread that could be saved without spoiling.
Today the General Instruction for the Roman Missal (GIRM) says that the Eucharistic bread should have the appearance of food. That is because we are doing an action that is supposed to carry out Jesus’ words: “take and eat.” The late theologian Karl Rahner taught that the grace of Eucharist is given in the act of chewing and swallowing it, something we hardly do with a dissolving wafer.
Certainly some rules about recipes are needed. Otherwise we might likely have Masses using soda crackers or bagels! In a world church like ours, we want both reverence and unity in our Communion practice, but, as Jesus said, the Sabbath is made for man, not man for the Sabbath. Some flexibility about bread is needed. Making Eucharist bread for each Mass is pretty difficult, so we need a bread recipe that holds up to freezing.
And I can’t see Jesus wanting anyone to give up receiving Eucharist because of allergies.
Surely we can find ways to keep the liturgical unity our bishops’ desire but also meet the practical and pastoral needs of our congregations!
