Real Live Preacher taste-tests communion wafers.
Of a mercy, at our church we use actual bread baked by the Altar Guild. We only break into the “poker chips” on the occasions when we run out, or for taking communion to the home-bound.
RLP, since he’s down in West Texas, uses flour tortillas.
I imagine the main reason that so many churches use the “poker chips” is convenience — lack of parishioner infrastructure to bake or buy bread, for example.
But for denominations who believe in transubstantiation or consubstantiation, it’s even more complicated. You can’t just toss out any of the leftovers — it needs to be eventually consumed. Unless you’ve done a great estimate of bread to bless (more problematic in larger churches), regular bread leftovers are a problem, since it doesn’t “keep” well — unlike the wafers which will, I imagine, last a lot longer (I would joke about their having eternal shelf life, but …).
At any rate, I’m glad we have real bread at our parish. 🙂
Oh, that is a funny video.
In the fundy churches I attended in Tennessee, we used… uh, “communion tic-tacs” would be the best description I suppose. I always wondered why a denomination that insisted on full-immersion baptism would beg the question of just how few actual wheat molecules consitutes the body of Christ. And a lot of sermon time was devoted to proving that where the New Testament refers to “wine”, it means “Welches grape juice” which left me wondering how anybody ever got drunk back then.
Sure, some people became drunk back then, but, as Arnie put it, “But they were all bad …”
That wasn’t so much an issue for me when I was growing up, since in all the Catholic churches I attended (save one), the congregation only got the bread.
The communion tradition comes from the hebrew feast of Passover. The “bread of affliction” is a thin, unleavened cracker like bread, not unlike saltine crackers. Also, during a traditional Passover Seder there are four cups of wine, not a single church-shot glass. Each part of the Seder has so much history and poetry behind it that the communion “feast” just misses.
I think it is unfortunate that the modern church has become so distant from its hebrew roots. It feels like some folks (okay, all of us from time to time) go to scripture already knowing what they’re (we’re) looking for and ignore what doesn’t fit that preconception.
Anyway, your taste buds can be glad that you don’t garnish your bread with horseradish.
Indeed. I don’t even like the stuff on roast beef. 🙂