Gary Ostlund (@Gary1954)

Totus Tuus on https://www.facebook.com/ It looks simple: a thin white wafer. The Church treats it with extraordinary care, because this is the bread that, at Mass, becomes the Body of Christ. In the Latin Church, altar bread must follow what Christ used at the Last Supper and what canon law still requires: wheat, water, nothing else. No yeast. No salt. No honey. No oil. No fruit. Bread made from rice, corn, or potato starch is not valid matter. Completely gluten-free hosts are not valid either. Low-gluten hosts are permitted only if they are still true wheat bread. That is why the recipe is almost shockingly plain. Pure wheat flour is mixed with water until it becomes a thin batter—something like thick cream. In many convents, sisters have done this work for generations. They ladle the batter onto special baking irons, closer to a waffle iron than a home oven, often stamped with a cross or the Chi-Rho. The sheets bake in seconds. They are stacked, slightly dampened so they will not shatter, then cut the next day: small hosts for the faithful, larger ones for the priest to break. Before consecration they are only bread—called altar breads or particles. After the words of consecration they are no longer bread. That is why the Church insists they be recently made, kept from spoiling, and prepared by people who know both the craft and the reverence due to what this bread is for. Eastern Catholic Churches, following their own apostolic tradition, use leavened wheat bread. Same Lord. Same sacrament. A different sign of the Resurrection already rising in the dough. So the next time you receive Holy Communion, remember how little went into that host: grain and water, heat and hands, and the Church’s refusal to decorate the gift Christ chose. The simplicity is the point. Heaven does not need a complicated recipe. It needs wheat that is truly wheat—and a Church that will not substitute something easier. “Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread we offer you: fruit of the earth and work of human hands, it will become for us the bread of life.” #Update #CatholicNews #NewsUpdate #FaithInAction #catholicfaith #catholicchurch #catholic