Rice Wine, the Eucharist, and Communist Prisons

[SanRafael1102]

I know that I’ve mentioned a certain soon to be beatified Archbishop from Illinois several times lately, but I was watching one of his videos the other day (I’m trying to find which one it was for reference sake) and he mentioned a bishop being thrown into a Communist prison.

Later on in the story he mentions that by God’s providence, the bishop was allowed to celebrate Mass while in prison, and then quickly he mentioned that it was because he was given a small amount of rice wine.

I’m not one to argue with the good Archbishop (we’ll call him Peter [because it’s technically his first name]), but I thought that you couldn’t use rice wine for the consecration. I love listening to his videos, but I was just curious: under certain circumstances, can the substance used for consecration be ignored?

 

[po18guy]

God’s grace. He provides, knowing man’s limitations.

The “normative” matter for consecration is grape wine. This is an abnormal, exceptional situation.

 

[Pitcairn17]

I didn’t think that the principle of Ecclesia Supplet applies in the case of invalid matter, irrespective of extreme circumstances.

 

[po18guy]

God is both more understanding and more loving than we are. In extremis situations call for careful discernment on the part of the celebrant. Indeed, we cannot know how the Bishop appealed to the Holy Spirit - or what response He received.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

I’ve wondered about such scenarios myself. Wheat and grapes do not grow everywhere, and likewise, unleavened, unadulterated wheat bread and pure grape wine does not exist everywhere. The supplies that a priest might take to a remote mission area will eventually run out. What then?

Only the Church can ultimately address such a dilemma. If he was a bishop when he was imprisoned — and this is really going out on a limb, I’m only speculating — borrowing a concept from Orthodox theology, could this have been a use of economia? Giving himself permission, in that he was a successor of the apostles, to interpret the mind of God in this extreme instance?

Again, that’s really going out on a limb.

 

[Tis_Bearself]

This was Archbishop Pollio of Kaifeng archdiocese, in prison in China in 1951. He wrote later about his experiences in prison. At that time, according to Pollio, grape wine and grape vinegar were not known in China because both were made from grain. (Edited original post because there were some grapes and grape wine in China, brought by missionaries. It seems like what the Archbishop is saying is that most people in China didn’t know about grapes and grape wine.)

He says what he actually got was “sacramental wine” from one of his “fellow missionaries”. He doesn’t say it was rice wine. The prison officials who inspected it thought it was vinegar. It sounds like it was whatever they were using for the regular Masses. It also sounds like the officials were so unfamiliar with sacramental wine, they didn’t know what it was.

So perhaps “Peter” misunderstood, or perhaps at the time in 1951 they had permission to use whatever they were using in China.

http://chiesa.espresso.repubblica.it/articolo/1351054bdc4.html?eng=y&refresh_ce

 

[ReaderT]

he mentioned a bishop being thrown into a Communist prison.

Was he an Orthodox Bishop (Russian/Romanian) or Catholic?

A well-known Father-Confessor in Russia was asked once how he had perfomed the Divine Liturgy during his many years in Soviet prisons. He answered:

“Many priests knew the text of the Liturgy by heart. We could find bread even if it wasn’t wheat bread, usually without difficulty. We had no choice but to replace the wine with cranberry juice. Instead of the altar with the relics of the martyr on which Church rules require us to serve the Liturgy, we would get the fellow convict-priest among us who had the broadest shoulders to help us. He would strip to his waist, lie down, and then we would say the Divine Liturgy upon his chest. Everyone in the concentration camps of the Gulag was a martyr liable at any moment to die for Christ.”
– Everyday Saints, Pokrov Publications, pg. 253

 

[Tis_Bearself]

He was Catholic. Archbishop Pollio of Kaifeng.

Archbishop Sheen (the “Peter” of the first post), a Catholic, was not going to be speechifying about an Orthodox cleric. Although I feel that God would have looked very favorably and kindly on the Orthodox bishop’s efforts also.

 

[dochawk]

I think it’s in The Other Catholics: Faithful and True that I found the description of the prisoners huddled around the priest with the squeezing of a hidden grape and a scrap of bread, using the priest’s hand for the Holy Table, and abbreviating it to four minutes or so. Noone paid attention in such settings as to who was Orthodox and who was Catholic . . .

 

[Tis_Bearself]

Well, we had the argument on another thread about that on the grounds that someone thought the grape juice wasn’t fermented enough.

 

[dochawk]

Yes: but that was an argument against biology (as well as RCC canon law, I suppose . . .)

Oh, and wasn’t someone claiming (again against biology) that the alcohol content was lower then (which would have required either significant genetic change over just 2000 years in either the sugar content of grapes, or the alcohol tolerance of wild yeast . . .)

 

[ReaderT]

I think it’s in The Other Catholics: Faithful and True that I found the description of the prisoners huddled around the priest with the squeezing of a hidden grape and a scrap of bread, using the priest’s hand for the Holy Table, and abbreviating it to four minutes or so. Noone paid attention in such settings as to who was Orthodox and who was Catholic . . .

Wowza. “Extreme cases call for extreme measures”

 

[dochawk]

And somehow in that extreme case, they came closer to our calling than any of us or our prelates come when able to devote full time to it

Why do we so much more of the unity to which we are called only in oppressesion?

 

[babochka]

I think it’s in The Other Catholics: Faithful and True that I found the description of the prisoners huddled around the priest with the squeezing of a hidden grape and a scrap of bread, using the priest’s hand for the Holy Table, and abbreviating it to four minutes or so. Noone paid attention in such settings as to who was Orthodox and who was Catholic . . .

This is how Father Walter Ciszek describes it in his book, “With God in Russia”:
(Note that he uses the term Mass to describe the Divine Liturgy in both the Latin Rite and the Greek Rite.)

… Father Caspar came looking for me in the barracks one night. Some of his Poles had told him there was another priest in camp. He found me before I had a chance to look him up and asked me if I wanted to say Mass. I was overwhelmed! My last Mass had been said in Chusovoy more than 5 years ago…

The men in Fr. Casper’s barrack were mostly Poles. They revered him as a priest, protected him, and he tried to say Mass for them at least once a week. They made the Mass wine for him out of raisins they had stolen on the docks, the altar breads from flour “apropriated” in the kitchen. My chalice that morning was a whiskey glass, the paten to hold the host was a god disc from a pocket watch. But my joy at being able to celebrate Mass again cannot be described.

Later, in a different camp full of Russians (Orthodox):

The first night, Fr. Viktor came to see me and brought with him everything I needed to say Mass. He gave me a handwritten copy of the Ortiental liturgy…

Beside Fr. Casper and I, there were also two Lithuanian priests, who always went around together, and three Greek Orthodox priests, who joined us from time to time.

Later, after his release from prison, but while he was still not able to leave Russia, he tells of his ministry among Lithuanians and Ukrainians, being asked to pray a Panakhida, baptize a baby, perform a marriage. He was later approached by Russian Orthodox faithful who were just happy to have found a priest and wanted his help in establishing a church.

 

[porthos11]

I didn’t think that the principle of Ecclesia Supplet applies in the case of invalid matter, irrespective of extreme circumstances.

This is correct. The Church can supply only for missing jurisdiction, not for invalid matter, which is of divine institution. Not even extreme situations call for this.

The appeal to the Holy Spirit does not hold water because, while God is not limited by has sacraments, he has revealed to us what is valid matter, and the Church has no power to change this. This is his established ordinance, and he has not revealed any alteratives. Can he change rice wine? Yes, of course. Will he? We don’t know, which is why no one, not even a Bishop can “discern” anything that contradicts what God has revealed.

The only real thing that will happen is that the priest or bishop will be unable to celebrate Mass.

 

[ReaderT]

And somehow in that extreme case, they came closer to our calling than any of us or our prelates come when able to devote full time to it

Why do we so much more of the unity to which we are called only in oppressesion?

Well that’s the thing - extreme cases allow us (Orthodox) to do things we would never normally do. The priests aren’t saying “we recognize our unity”, but “I’m exercising economy” (I assume that’s what’s happening anyway). But I don’t know for sure