The Second Vatican Council referred to the Eucharist as "the source and summit of the Christian life," St. Augustine referred to it as "a Divine storehouse filled with every virtue," and St. Thérèse of Lisieux described it simply as "the sole remedy, if you want to be cured."
Yet though Christ in the Eucharist occupies a place of centrality in the Church, many Catholics may not ever stop to reflect on the bread that in the Mass becomes Christ — namely, how is this unique substance produced before it is brought to the altar?
The question is not merely academic; in rare instances the local Church can run out of Communion hosts, as occurred in Cuba in June. All of Cuba's hosts are produced by Discalced Carmelites at the Monastery of Santa Teresa and San José, but the lack of a reliable power supply there hindered production over the summer.
Sister Ruth Starman, the head of altar bread production for the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration in Clyde, Missouri, told EWTN News that the requirements for Catholic altar bread are dictated by the Code of Canon Law of the Church, specifically canon 924.
The sisters' abbey in Missouri has been producing altar bread for years and was the first U.S. producer of altar breads approved by the Vatican to make low-gluten hosts.
Standard hosts, she said, "can be made of wheat and water only."
"Yeast is not allowed because that would make it leavened bread and Jesus used unleavened bread at the Last Supper," she said. "Any other additives such as salt, honey, etc. would be forbidden."
In addition to the strict water-and-wheat requirements, Church law dictates that the bread must be "recently made so that there is no danger of spoiling."
Manufacturers, meanwhile, use special machines on which to bake the bread to ensure it is produced in the familiar uniform and thin style.
"The baking machines have plates that may have designs on them or not," Starman said. "The plates will produce a thin wafer sheet that will then need to be moistened in a dampener before being cut into the round hosts." Breads that are not moistened "will shatter when cut," she said.
Special cutters, meanwhile, allow bakers to divide the bread into differently sized hosts including the smaller rounds intended for lay communicants and the larger portions for priests and bishops.
As to why the bread is so thin and flat, Starman told EWTN News: "I don't have the answer for that but just conjecture. Because it is unleavened, the bread will be 'flat' anyway. However, I suppose with the invention of specialized baking equipment, where two baker plates close upon the batter, that probably started the more wafer-thin hosts."
Starman said there have been "no major changes" to the process in recent years.
"The Vatican does periodically have to remind priests and the Church at large that anything other than a wheat bread cannot be used," she said. "Hosts made from rice, corn, or potato starch, for example, are considered invalid matter."
The low-gluten hosts at the abbey, she said, are made from two different wheat starches that have had most of the gluten removed. "The Church does not say how much wheat percentage a host must have, but only that it needs to have some amount to make it valid matter," she said.
Elsewhere the Church has stressed the need for hosts to be treated with reverence at every stage of the process. The instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum, promulgated in March 2004 by what was then the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, states that the bread "should obviously be made by those who are not only distinguished by their integrity, but also skilled in making them and furnished with suitable tools."
In response to the shortage of Communion hosts in Cuba earlier this year, Church leaders in Panama sent 35,000 hosts to the island nation, while another 300,000 were sent from Puerto Rico.
Archbishop José Domingo Ulloa Mendieta of Panama said at the time that the emergency shipment arose "in response to the difficulties several Cuban dioceses are facing in ensuring a supply of hosts."
The prelate called the hosts "an essential element for the celebration of the sacrament that constitutes the source and summit of the Christian life."
