I must confess I have long found the widespread use use of individual wafers that bear little or no resemblance to even unleavened bread to be a somewhat strange development in Eucharistic practice, even though I think I understand some of the reasons for that development (among other things, a strict avoidance of leavening, and a theology which made crumbs a serious problem). But this is just getting really peculiar:

The family markets its bread as “untouched by human hands” until they are delivered to parishioners in the Communion line. “You just want to make it as perfect as possible,” said Andy Cavanagh, a member of the family that runs the business.

This is especially strange because the Cavanaghs, and a large part of their clientele, are Roman Catholic, and the Roman Catholic eucharistic prayer includes this passage:

Blessed are you Lord God of all creation
Through your goodness we have this bread to offer
Which earth has given and human hands have made.
It will become or us the bread of life.

But human hands don’t make the Cavanagh wafers. Robots do:

“In huge tubs, about 90 pounds of cake flour is mixed with about 13 gallons of water. The batter is then sent through a tube, where it is piped onto a large metal plate. Another plate clamps on top, and it goes through the oven. Each plate is like a “very large, 500-pound waffle iron,” Dan Cavanagh said.

After coming out of the oven, the wafers spend about 15 minutes in what amounts to a humidifier, so they do not become brittle. When sufficiently moist they roll down a tube and into a spinning cylinder that resembles the ones in bingo halls.

The wafers are then shot to a machine that either puts them in sleeves of 100 or counts them for bags of 250. Then they are boxed.”

The process is designed to meet the requirements of Catholics and others for unleavened, crumb-free wafers. The history of the company, and the evolution of their product, especially in the changes made subsequent to Vatican II, is quite interesting.

I’ll leave it to the Catholic sacramental theologians to sort out the significance of the widespread use of bread made by an automated process. I think I prefer my communion bread made by real human hands, and broken and shared among human hands. As for crumbs: if Jesus can get into the bread, he can get out of the bread again.

Another interesting point from the article: apparently, they have a whole separate manufacturing process to produce communion bread for Southern Baptists, which contains oil and produces small squares. Anyone know anything about this? I’m a little surprised that Baptists have a developed enough sacramental theology to care about that kind of detail, but that’s likely because I just don’t know very much about Baptist theology.

(Via Kottke.)

Addendum: In the Episcopal Church, the phrase “human hands have made” is used in Eucharistic Prayer 3 in Enriching Our Worship, the book of approved supplemental liturgical texts for the Episcopal Church, just after the words of consecration:

And so, remembering all that was done for us:
the cross, the tomb, the resurrection and ascension,
longing for Christ’s coming in glory,
and presenting to you these gifts
your earth has formed and human hands have made,
we acclaim you, O Christ.

Our son G., who is nearly 3, loved it because there were a lot of other–mostly bigger–kids there. Many of them had come early to help bake the bread, and so when we moved up to the sanctuary, the kids brought up the bread and the wine as a group, and then were invited to stay up around the altar during the Eucharistic prayer. G., quite the extrovert, loved this as well, and spent his time up there being held up by one of the older girls, waving to the congregation (some of whom waved back), spinning around, jumping, and generally having a great time as part of a pack of kids.

The kids had communion first, and then the rest of us went up, and the kids went back to sit with their parents. G. was quite indignant about this, he wanted to stay up there, or be with the other kids.

As they started stripping the altar, he was also saying that he wanted bread. I thought he maybe wanted more bread, or that he was upset because he didn’t also get bread when he was with us. As it turned out, though, it appears that he didn’t get communion at all, that somehow he got missed in the shuffle of the pack of kids, and then when we went up, we thought he had already got some with the other kids.

This came out at home as I was trying to get him to sleep–well past his normal bedtime. I almost had him down, when suddenly he remembered that he hadn’t had any bread at communion. He was instantly in tears and inconsolable. I felt terrible–of all the days to be left out of sharing in the bread! I tried getting some pita from the kitchen to give him, but even in a completely dark room, without even looking at it or touching it, he refused it as not being the right thing, and only got more upset.

Fortunately, it turned out that M. had a wafer left in the communion kit she uses at the hospital for her chaplaincy internship, which very quickly resolved the situation. G. was communicated, and thus fed, happily snuggled up and fell asleep a few minutes later.

. . .

I grew up in the Roman Catholic Church, where children join in communion only after instruction and preparation, and eventually a First Communion. In the Episcopal Church, communion is open to all who have been baptized (and some places now are experimenting with removing even that restriction). G has been receiving communion for over two years already. It was surprising to me at first, right after his baptism. I wondered at offering such a thing to an infant who did not understand what it was. I have since had the joy to be shown again and again that an infant, a young child, can indeed understand enough about shared food, a community gathered around a table. Enough to run to the altar to claim his share in Christ’s body, and enough to shed tears and lose sleep when denied that share, even inadvertently.

And how much do I understand, really? And insofar as I think I have any understanding now, it has come not from instruction received, but in participating again and again, week after week, in churches familiar and strange, home and away, again and again remembering that we are called to eat and become Christ’s body.

G. already has a significant head start on me there.