Why the wafer !?

[Mintaka]

Only one person at a table breaks a loaf of bread. After that, it’s already broken, and you’re just picking off pieces. In general, that would be the person hosting the meal.

Breaking bread in the middle is pretty close to an announcement by the host that he wants people to eat up the whole thing. Somebody who’s eating alone just cuts off a piece, so that the rest of the loaf stays good.

Similar things happen with Middle Eastern flatbread. If it’s a big single common piece of bread, somebody has to rip it apart so that the others can start to eat. The host tends to do it, because the guests are too mannerly to just start in without him.

Anyway… at every Mass, the priest breaks a host, which fulfills the part about the breaking of the bread. You might not notice it, because for various reasons the priest is forbidden in some Rites to actually break the bread at the same moment that he repeats the part of the Eucharistic narrative of institution that talks about breaking the bread. (Yes, stupid people with stupid heresies caused this. Somebody always has to ruin it for the rest of us.)

In fact, the priest must put a broken bit of host into the cup, or it ain’t a valid Latin Rite Mass, EF, or OF – no ifs, ands, or buts. (This is done for various reasons you can look up.)

Maureen

 

[thistle]

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.

Its his usual incoherent babbling.

 

[twinc]

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.

could it just possibly be that I am trying to kill two birds with one stone and produce what will be said here elsewhere.Take presumally and reasonably meant take with your hands for it is now being contended in some Catholic circles that only the Priest has hands holier enough to handle the host and communion should only be on the tongue as it used to be etc - this was going to be another topic but now I have had to include it here - twinc

 

[edjco]

Matthew 26:"While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, “Take and eat; this is my body.”

Looks to me like Jesus is the one who broke the bread. The Priest at Mass is acting in persona Christi (in the person of Christ), so he is the one who breaks the bread.