Communion WafersDemand required a solution to the communion dilemma for individuals with food sensitivities. Ener-G Foods was the first to market and provide a simple wafer that offered not only the bread for breaking in holy communion but also a convenient product for churches and congregations to offer to its members. A light, plain, small round wafer. Its also now soy-free!
Ingredients: Filtered water, sweet rice flour, potato flour, palm oil, potato starch, methlcellulose, sunflower lecithin, Ener-G baking powder (sodium pyrosphosphate, sodium bicarbonate, potato starch, monocalcium phosphate.)
Free of: gluten, wheat casein, dairy, nut, egg, corn, yeast, soy, low protein.
Price: $7.89 package of 50 (plus $6.00 shipping)
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http://www.ener-g.com/store/detail.aspx?section=15&cat=15&id=21
As far as I can see from the list of ingredients, this communion bread is invalid matter. The ingredients for valid communion bread is wheat flour and water. No substitutes will do. Clergy should be advised about this for the good of their people. Invalid matter cannot be used to confect the Eucharist or any other sacrament.
ReplyDeleteThe commitment to wheat bread is a part of our beliefs in the essentials of the church states in the Chicago-Lambeth Quadrilateral. If someone has a bread allergy, they should receive the Precious Blood only, just as if someone is sick, it would be appropriate to receive the Host only.
YOU DO UNDERSTAND, TIMOTHY, HOW VERY MUCH LIKE A PHARISEE YOU SOUND, DON"T YOU?
ReplyDeleteI JUST PRAY THAT YOU OR SOMEONE YOU LOVE DOESN'T DEVELOP AN ALLERGY THAT PREVENTS THEM FROM EATING WHEAT AND/OR DRINKING WINE.
AS I SAID, A RESOLUTION TO SHANGE THAT RUBRIC WILL BE BROUGHT TO GC 2009.
I am allergic to red wine.
ReplyDeleteMy condolences. But, you still have the option of white.
ReplyDeleteWait! Don't tell me that the canons say we must have Red wine.
Oh, and BTW, you missed my point. You still sound like a Pharisee talking to Jesus.
Of them all, I prefer to think of you as Nicodemus who, when Jesus said, "You must be born again . . .," asked, "But, you can't enter you're mother's womb again. . ." (Jn 3:1-21.
That's not the last word, however. We do hear from Nicodemus again.
Fast forward to Jn 21:19-42. I'd like to think that it was Nicodemus who convinced Joseph of Arimathea to come boldly into the light, both providing for Jesus a proper burial - Nicodemus the burial spices and Joseph the tomb.
Never mind that the Resurrection would make all that unnecessary.
It was the boldness of their generosity, a reflection of what they had seen in Jesus, to tend to the humanity of Jesus that always brings tears to my eyes.
So, too, I believe we are called to tend to the humanity of the Body of Christ - that all may be fed and nourished with the spirital food of heaven.
Go on, Timotheos AKA Nicodemus, withold the Bread of Heaven from the children of God who are allergic to the earthly substance which some well meaning but very wrong Pharisee has decreed it must be.
I suspect Jesus and you will have a little chat when you get on the other side of Eden.
Jesus will love you anyway, of course, and you'll be given full entry into the glorious Realm of God.
But then, of course, you will know the truth of God's abundant and inclusive love for us all.
You'll know it because, you'll experience it as the way you are loved as well.
Elizabeth,
ReplyDeleteAre you in such a rush to gleefully pass judgment upon me as a pharisee that you have forgotten about the love and care we should have for our people?
How can priests with even the most basic understanding of sacramental theology go out of their way to use invalid matter (such as non-wheat "bread" or rice wine or apple wine) and offer it to their people as the "Body of Christ" or the "Blood of Christ" when they know it is something that the Church has unfailingly said cannot be? Jesus only provided for the use of wheat bread and grape wine. We cannot add or take away from that.
Clergy are entrusted to be "stewards of the mysteries of God" (1 Cor 4:1). People are trusting us to be genuine with them. How can it be loving to trick someone to such a great degree? Is that showing any care for their spiritual welfare? Let us never forget our people. Let us love them and care for them. Let us truly be trustworthy stewards of God's mysteries.
Also, the mention of a resolution to change that at the next General Convention is meaningless. The point the Quadrilateral was making with "ministered with unfailing use of Christ's words of institution and of the elements ordained by Him" is that these are among the essentials of the church that we have no ability to change.
I take no joy in comparing you with the Pharisee. I simply calls 'em like I sees 'em, Timothy.
ReplyDeleteI would ask the same question of you: How could you deny the "Bread of Heaven" to the people of God when your ordination vows specifically call you to "nourish the people of God from the bounty of God's riches . . ." ?
What kind of priest with even the most basic of understandings of either sacramental theology or the role and function of a priest in the Body of Christ be so cruel?
How could the faith of a one of the faithful be so weak, so miserly, so capricious and such a poor example of the unconditional love of God and the sacramental grace which is freely and abunduntly bestowed without our even having earned or deserved it?
The vow I took at ordination does not place my obedience to scripture in any jeopardy.
Neither does serving bread other than that from wheat put me in defiance of my ordination vows.
However, I want to strongly suggest to you that if you serve only bread made from wheat, denying the people of God with allergies the opportunity to have a foretaste of the heavenly banquet and be nourished and sustained for the work of building up the Realm of God, you are in serious violation of your ordination vows and in direct defiance of the scripture you quote.
There will be a resolution at General Convention in 2009 which will, I trust, make this converstaion moot - even more so than your weak argument about Quadrilateral and how you interpret and define "the essentials of the church."
By that time, however, I have no doubt, the Diocese of FW will consist of the faithful remnant of The Episcopal Church.
The rest of you will be known by another name. You may have kept the "Anglican" name, but it remains a matter of debate whether or not you will be in communion with Canterbury.
Even so, you will have left the Episcopal Church. As such, you will have neither vote nor voice in the matters of the Episcopal Church.
Indeed, you will, no doubt, be joyfully and confidently under the allegience of and obedience to a foreign curia.
I wish you all Godspeed.
But first, I would strongly urge you carefully read the constitution and canons of dioceses in places like Nigeria, Uganda, Rwanda, etc.
I have. I do believe you are in for a very rude awakening.
Whatever will you do when you are required to go forth and use the bread of the people of the Global South?
However will you reconcile your own particular brand of rigid Anglo-Catholicism with the evangelical ferver of most of the Southern Hemisphere?
I'll be watching with rapt attention.
You seem to read alot into a comment about wheat (or the absence thereof). I wish you God's guidance on your journey.
ReplyDelete