Tradition or tyrrany?

Last week, a Roman Catholic bishop in New Jersey declined to reverse

a decision, barring a 9-year-old girl from consuming a rice wafer as

part of communion. Haley Pelly-Waldman has celiac-sprue disease, a

genetic condition that prevents her from eating gluten -- a protein

found in wheat, barley and rye, but not in rice. Catholic teaching is

that priests can turn bread and wine into Jesus’ body and blood, and

that the bread Jesus consecrated was unleavened wheat. A spokesman

for the bishop said the girl could consume a low-gluten wafer,

partake of a drink made of partially fermented grapes or touch her

mouth to consecrated wine. Elizabeth Pelly-Waldman, the girl’s

mother, rejected all three options, saying she didn’t want her

daughter to consume any gluten or alcohol. How far should a religious

group go to maintain a tradition, when it may cause harm to a

parishioner?

Breaking bread together -- sharing a meal -- is a universal way of

experiencing the meaning of family and community. In a very few

years, as a young teen, Haley will undoubtedly make her own decisions

about Communion, the Catholic Church and her mother’s wishes.

Meantime, her mother and the bishop have dug in their heels about

their issues.

At the Last Supper, Jesus did not hand his disciples one-inch

round wafers, whether wheat, rice or low gluten. He broke bread. The

bread was an unleavened type, somewhat like pita.

What is important is that this was ordinary table bread --

natural, humble, simple daily bread that was to become “the bread of

life.”

The tradition has already radically changed throughout the

centuries and has adapted itself to modern manufacturing and

distribution methods in order to serve large numbers of congregants.

In my senior year in college, I lived in a Catholic monastery,

where the nuns baked altar breads to make their living. The water and

flour was poured onto sheets, then pressed to keep it from rising

(like a waffle iron), and later perforated by a cookie cutter type of

device to make the small round disks.

During the years following Vatican II and in the ‘70s, it was not

unusual for people at small Masses to experiment with various types

of breads in order to return to a more authentic reenactment. Women

and laymen also created “Breaking and Blessing of Bread” services

(“para liturgies”) to sidestep prohibitions against women saying Mass

and the requirement that a priest preside. Guidelines for services

“without the presence of a priest” were developed to regulate them.

In the mainstream, boomer and older Catholics have already

personally experienced vast changes in Communion practices during

their lifetime. Congregants used to kneel in a row at the front of

the church and a wafer was placed on their tongues. For the last 30

years, people have instead formed a single file line, standing in

front of the priest or Eucharistic minister.

There was quite a hoopla when people first wanted to have the Host

-- the bread or wafer consecrated -- placed in their hands. Now it is

commonplace, and rubrics have been developed to specify exactly how

this is to be done.

The tradition changed. The real question is how each generation of

practitioners internalizes and drinks in the religious tradition,

which is then interpreted and expressed anew in each culture and

time.

I surmise that Haley’s mother is standing up for values of

inclusion, accommodation of people who have disabilities or special

needs, concern about addictive epidemics such as alcoholism and a

need for flexibility and mercy. The jurists at the Vatican could

easily craft regulations that would maintain wheat wafers as the

norm, but would also grant limited exceptions.

These disagreements are called “liturgy wars” by John L. Allen

Jr., the Rome correspondent for the National Catholic Reporter. They

are power struggles between the local church (some bishops, the

national bishops’ conferences, professional liturgists/specialists,

and parish liturgy committees) and those who prefer centralized

Vatican control (via the Congregation for Divine Worship and the

Discipline of the Sacraments).

Who will lead and make decisions? How much latitude or diversity

can exist within a church? Should local bishops be trusted to

exercise their pastoral discretion?

While Communion is important to Christians, there is a bigger

picture. There was an era when the divine presence was experienced by

many Catholics primarily during the Mass and in receiving Communion,

believed to be the Body and Blood of Christ (the Real Presence).

There has been a mega shift both in the church and in our culture

toward appreciating and experiencing the presence of the divine in

all persons, places and things. The focus widens and religious

experience is not limited to attending Mass and receiving Communion,

but to discovering this meaning in the midst of life.

The Zen practitioner tries to awaken to the treasure of life,

which is each moment as it is. We do not emphasize liturgy or

chanting or any special services. Regular meditation is the way in

which Zen practitioners experience the ultimate meaning and value of

our life. The Communion wafer is the finger pointing at the moon.

REV. DR. DEBORAH BARRETT

Zen Center of Orange County

Costa Mesa

Health-wholeness-holiness in body and mind and spirit is a goal of

all faith communities, isn’t it? “How can a person find God when they

are not as well as possible physically?” is almost as good a question

as the traditional, “How can a person come into faith when they are

starving of hunger?”

In this Episcopal Parish Church, there are a number of

communicants for whom wine with alcohol is poison; they partake of

Holy Eucharist with wheat bread only. We have one occasional

parishioner who has a serious wheat allergy; when she receives the

Holy Communion here, she takes only the wine. Because the grace of

the Blessed Sacrament is fully contained in but one molecule of

either the bread or the wine, these beloveds receive the grace of

Communion as completely as another who takes a whole wafer or a full

sip of wine.

If someone for whom both wheat bread and wine with alcohol were

unhealthy desired to receive the sacrament here, I would consult with

our Parish’s worship commission, Anglican sacramental theologians and

the Bishop of our Episcopal Diocese. I am confident that we would

easily and graciously find other ways for that person to receive Holy

Communion openly and honestly so as to enhance their

holiness-wholeness-health.

(THE VERY REV’D CANON)

PETER D. HAYNES

Saint Michael & All Angels

Episcopal Parish Church

Corona del Mar

Jesus was asked the same question when he was criticized for

healing a man on the Sabbath. The religious people were appalled at

his lack of respect for tradition. Jesus replied that the Sabbath was

made for man and not the other way around.

Protestants broke from the Roman Church precisely because of this

kind of issue. Tradition became valued over truth; practice became

more important than people.

The Lord’s table is a remembrance of Jesus’ sacrifice for us and

an invitation by Christ himself to do so. To legalistically require

specific types of ingredients, especially when the life and health of

a child is at stake, misses the point at best and is abusive at

worst.

Traditions are icons of reality. They point us to the reality and

are not meant to take the place of the real thing. When the tradition

is practiced for the sake of the tradition, the reality is forgotten

and is eventually lost.

The Jewish practice of Passover is a great example of keeping a

tradition relevant. There are many Haggadahs (service orders) for

practicing the Passover in ways that keep the message alive and

relevant. We use several different Haggadahs as we celebrate the

deliverance of God’s people, the nation of Israel. It is just as

vital a message for us today as Christians as it has been for Jews of

any age.

More importantly, it was this celebration that Christ was

celebrating when he instituted the Lord’s Supper. He took the cup of

salvation and the bread of the Afikoman and said, “Do this in

remembrance of me.” He did not say, “Do this exactly like me.”

There are many ways to remember our traditions without being

legalistic and abusive to our followers.

People naturally fall in love with that which is meaningful in

their lives. As leaders, we must guard traditions from becoming idols

and remember that without the people, any religion is useless.

Religion is for the benefit of people, not people for benefit of

religion.

SENIOR ASSOCIATE

PASTOR RIC OLSEN

Harbor Trinity

Costa Mesa

It is tempting to reflexively object to a decision so apparently

insensitive and arbitrary, what seems to be an example of man’s law

obscuring God’s truth. After all, the Gospel of Matthew teaches: “It

is not what enters a man’s mouth that defiles, but what proceeds from

it that defiles.”

Abstaining from eating meat on Fridays used to be synonymous with

Catholicism, but if that dietary restriction was abolished, why can’t

this one be slightly modified for such a seemingly valid reason?

Is a wheat-based Eucharist truly the only recipe for Communion?

Does gluten-free bread render the Sacrament invalid? Does a different

flavor or chemical composition vitiate theological validity? Is it

only wheat that can be transubstantiated into Christ’s body?

Leviticus teaches that we are to live by God’s commandments and

not die by them. Jesus himself said, “Suffer the little children to

come unto me,” not “make the children suffer!”

Judaism is often characterized by the church as excessively

legalistic, focused obsessively on the minutiae of ritual. The New

Testament rails against preoccupation with “rite” at the expense of

“right.” Jesus is portrayed as criticizing those who exalt rules and

regulations, mere externals, above the moral purpose of the rituals.

This “hypocrisy,” according to Gospel debates, endangers the

fulfillment of religion’s true purpose -- to create intimacy between

God and the faithful. Yet, in this matter of the ingredient of the

Host, we seem to have a punctiliousness bordering on the absurd!

It is only when we explore this tradition’s origin that our

initial negative response may be tempered. It is the church’s belief

that Jesus used wheat bread at the Last Supper and ordered to “do

this in memory of me.” Catholicism holds that the use of bread made

of wheat is of divine origin and that the church has no authority to

alter what Christ ordained. The Host is explicitly unleavened wheat

bread, because it was with wheat that Jesus instituted the Eucharist

at the Last Supper.

How do we know that Jesus consumed wheat with his disciples? The

Last Supper was the Passover Seder and hence matzah was eaten. Matzah

is prepared from wheat to fulfill the obligation to eat bread that is

unleavened but that is capable of leavening. The flat bread

symbolizes the bondage of Egypt; that it can rise through leavening

represents the new life of freedom.

Jewish tradition disqualifies rice as fulfilling the purpose of

wheat because rice does not ferment and become leavened. The

Communion Host is made of wheat because wheat can ferment and rise.

As the Gospel of John points out, when a grain of wheat is sown

into the earth, it first dies and then grows in resurrection. It

rises through its death, thus linking the seed of wheat to the Divine

Mystery. The grain of wheat dying in the earth in order to grow and

bear a harvest is Jesus’ death and burial in the tomb and his

Resurrection

The Seder of Judaism and the Communion of Catholicism share in the

belief that the bread must be made of a grain that participates in

the process of leavening, of rising, of liberation from death, of

going forth to new life. That grain is wheat.

The temptation to denigrate this ancient tradition should be

resisted. We should look beneath the surface and separate the wheat

from the chaff.

RABBI MARK S. MILLER

Temple Bat Yahm

Newport Beach