Why the wafer !?

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the command was "take - [with your hands] - break - [with your hands] - and eat[chew] - the breaking of bread it used to be known as so why the wafer - twinc
 
twinc said:
the command was "take - [with your hands] - break - [with your hands] - and eat[chew] - the breaking of bread it used to be known as so why the wafer - twinc
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This is just MY opinion—The Passover meal is a remembrance of the Passover meal of the OT. There the Jews were told to make unleavened bread to be able to leave in a hurry. The wafer is made of unleavened bread and represents the bread of the OT passover and the manna in the dessert in Exodus. Granted unleavened bread looks like a flat loaf and can be broken by the hands but I think that we use the wafer because of the multitude of people that receive communion at Mass. Also because the priest and Eucharistic ministers are the only ones who are allowed to give out Holy Communion. I for one would not like to take and tear off a piece of bread and eat it that had been handled buy a hundred people.
Just my opinion.

Jeanne
 
A lot of the Eastern Catholic churches use actual hunks of bread. I like that better than the wafers.
 
twinc said:
the command was "take - [with your hands] - break - [with your hands] - and eat[chew] - the breaking of bread it used to be known as so why the wafer - twinc
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The wafer IS unleavened bread!
 
JeanneH said:
This is just MY opinion—The Passover meal is a remembrance of the Passover meal of the OT. There the Jews were told to make unleavened bread to be able to leave in a hurry. The wafer is made of unleavened bread and represents the bread of the OT passover and the manna in the dessert in Exodus. Granted unleavened bread looks like a flat loaf and can be broken by the hands but I think that we use the wafer because of the multitude of people that receive communion at Mass. Also because the priest and Eucharistic ministers are the only ones who are allowed to give out Holy Communion. I for one would not like to take and tear off a piece of bread and eat it that had been handled buy a hundred people.
Just my opinion.

Jeanne
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and yet you would sup the cup[sounds a lot like Matt.23:24] - twinc
 
Sup the cup?

And what exactly are you accusing people of? Matthew 23:24 says 4 Blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel.

You’re accusing Catholics (and you claim to be one) of such in reference to communion HOSTs? I wonder why. It is unleavened bread. It is a nice convenient shape and size and more suitable for consumption without the risk of dropping crumbs of the Precious Body.

So why the difficulty? It is BREAD. Bread itself has a long history and has undergone a lot of changes especially in flour milling, etc. Doesn’t make it so different, why should its shape matter?
 
Tantum_ergo said:
Sup the cup?

And what exactly are you accusing people of? Matthew 23:24 says 4 Blind guides, who strain out a gnat, and swallow a camel.

You’re accusing Catholics (and you claim to be one) of such in reference to communion HOSTs? I wonder why. It is unleavened bread. It is a nice convenient shape and size and more suitable for consumption without the risk of dropping crumbs of the Precious Body.

So why the difficulty? It is BREAD. Bread itself has a long history and has undergone a lot of changes especially in flour milling, etc. Doesn’t make it so different, why should its shape matter?
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exactly so - why did its shape matter - the progression logically would be manna to unleavened bread to real bread to the real bread of life - twinc
 
twinc said:
so to be exactly correct lets have one or more large wafers that we can each break a piece off and chew etc - twinc
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It is for the priests - acting in persona Christe- to do the breaking, not the laity, no matter if the Host is leavened or unleavened.
 
twinc said:
exactly so - why did its shape matter - the progression logically would be manna to unleavened bread to real bread to the real bread of life - twinc
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Oh my goodness. :rolleyes:

The wafer is designed so that it doesn’t crumble and make a bunch of crumbs everywhere. To prevent little peices of God flying all over the place.

2nd. The command was to eat his body. . Not break it. The term “breaking of the bread” can describe the act of getting together to eat. It didn’t necessarily mean to tear or seperate it. :coolinoff:

If you really want to get hung up on the physical breaking of the bread some parishes use a large host that the priest actually breaks.
 
twinc said:
so to be exactly correct lets have one or more large wafers that we can each break a piece off and chew etc - twinc
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As a matter of fact, that’s used in some places in Latin Churches.

So what?
 
\2nd. The command was to eat his body. . Not break it. The term “breaking of the bread” can describe the act of getting together to eat. It didn’t necessarily mean to tear or seperate it.\

**As a matter of fact, “breaking of bread” is a term used in the NT PRECISELY to mean the Eucharist.

Furthermore, the command was “Do this”. Part of the “doing” that Christ did was breaking the bread.**

\If you really want to get hung up on the physical breaking of the bread some parishes use a large host that the priest actually breaks.\

**In ANY rite, including both forms of the Roman, the Fraction has always been part of the Eucharistic Action.

In other words, both forms of the Roman Rite call for the priest to “actually break” a large host.**
 
bpbasilphx said:
Furthermore, the command was “Do this”. Part of the “doing” that Christ did was breaking the bread.

**In ANY rite, including both forms of the Roman, the Fraction has always been part of the Eucharistic Action.

In other words, both forms of the Roman Rite call for the priest to “actually break” a large host.**
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As an earlier poster pointed out, “It is for the priests - acting in persona Christi - to do the breaking”.

At the Last Supper, Christ did the breaking, not the Twelve. At Mass, the priest does the breaking, not the congregation.
 
FCEGM said:
It is for the priests - acting in persona Christe- to do the breaking, not the laity, no matter if the Host is leavened or unleavened.
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I always understood that only a priest could consectate the host - btw why exactly is the wafer known as the host - twinc
 
twinc said:
the command was "take - [with your hands] - break - [with your hands] - and eat[chew] - the breaking of bread it used to be known as so why the wafer - twinc
Click to expand...
Why do you have to add “with your hands” in brackets? **Because the words aren’t in Scripture. **
Your whole argument is based on a false understanding. We are to eat and drink the Body and Blood of the Lord, but that doesn’t mean each individual person has to break the host!

Besides, liturgy develops within Tradition. We are talking about God present sacramentally. The priest acts in the person of Christ, and also acts upon our behalf (e.g. only he receives the Precious Blood in the EF, and often in the OF) … for practical reasons, theological reasons as well, he gives Communion to us.
 
newyorkcatholic said:
Why do you have to add “with your hands” in brackets? **Because the words aren’t in Scripture. **
Your whole argument is based on a false understanding. We are to eat and drink the Body and Blood of the Lord, but that doesn’t mean each individual person has to break the host!

Besides, liturgy develops within Tradition. We are talking about God present sacramentally. The priest acts in the person of Christ, and also acts upon our behalf (e.g. only he receives the Precious Blood in the EF, and often in the OF) … for practical reasons, theological reasons as well, he gives Communion to us.
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not always,sometimes he just sits there and lets others - originally they must have taken the unleavened bread with their hans and have broken off a piece and passed it around and they also did with the one cup - twinc
 
twinc said:
not always,sometimes he just sits there and lets others - originally they must have taken the unleavened bread with their hans and have broken off a piece and passed it around and they also did with the one cup - twinc
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correction:- hands
 
twinc said:
not always,**sometimes **he just sits there and lets others - originally they must have taken the unleavened bread with their hans and have broken off a piece and passed it around and they also did with the one cup - twinc
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Sometimes? Must have? Logical progression according to you? Bread or wafer or host? The spelling errors?
Thank God we have Sacred Scripture, Sacred Tradition and the Magisterium to come up with what we have in the mass now, not from someone that comes up with all this ‘theory’ on what could have happened 2,000 years before.
 
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