I wish that we didn’t use white bread for the sacrament. I don’t really know where the tradition started. I suspect that it probably began as an issue of cost, but it seems to have hardened into an unwritten rule of sorts. Perhaps there is some notion that white bread somehow symbolizes purity and cleanliness. As I have suggested elsewhere, I don’t think it is unimportant that the sacrament involves eating something.
I wish, however, that we had a special kind of sacrament bread with a very distinctive taste. It would wonderful if each week when I took the sacrament I experienced a taste that was only available in that ritual and which I could identify with the taste of atonement and salvation. Lehi dwells at some length on the taste of the fruit of the tree of life. I can’t help but thinking that it was something more powerful and unique than Wonder Bread.
You want something with a little more meat to it, Nate?
In our ward, the bread is whatever the 14-15-year-old assinged to bring the bread gets at the store Saturday night at 11pm when he suddenly remembers he has the assignment. We end up with all kinds of different breads. I personally like it when we end up with some soft-but-hardy wheat bread that bites back a little.
Someone once used cornbread. That was a kick!
I loved the sacramental bread in Spain; they use spanish baguettes. Each Sunday when I took the sacrament while a missionary, as I tasted the distinctive bread I reflected that my time as a missionary was fleeting, that my service would some day end, and I’d again return to the Land of Private-Label Wonder. The spanish bread symbolized all that was good about Spain and my laboring for Christ’s sake there. This is just a reminiscence, not a substantive point about unique bread.
As for unique bread, my thought has been to assign some of our ward’s members, especially women who live alone, to bake bread for our sacrament. I think they would feel it a special task to prepare the Lord’s supper, and the congregation would know it was made by someone who revered its symbolism.
For a season I actually baked the bread for our sacraments… it was Irish soda bread, and I baked a small loaf for each tray… I loved it. I loved having such an intimate experience with the bread. I loved laboring over the loaves and babying them.
I, also, hate the white bread that is used for the sacrament. When i lived in a small ward I decided to change it. For a YW project i baked bread every sunday. The fresh bread was a needed change to the nasty wonder bread. Suggest it to YW it is a good project for personal progress.
I love bread, but only white bread. I prefer fresh baked bread, of course. The french bread from my local Safeway or Fred Meyer are great. I love to grocery shop there and pick up a loaf and have bread and butter for my lunch.
I don’t like wheat, rye, whole grain, nut, sourdough, parmesan, added spices, or anything else.
Freshly baked bread for the sacrament sounds great, but in that case I would prefer a whole slice…or two.
A couple of years ago, my son, who was becoming a very unhealthy toddler, was diagnosed with Celiac’s Disease — which is an autoimmune disease. Shortly thereafter, my wife and I also tested positive for the disease. The only “cure” is to not eat gluten. Thus, our entire family no longer eats wheat, rye or barley and my son and the rest of the family are much healthier as a result.
Along with plenty of other life changes (including taking all the joy out of eating at restaurants in Manhattan), taking the sacrament has been greatly changed for us.
We have to coordinate with the Aaronic Priesthood and its leaders to ensure our gluten-free bread is on a clean and separate tray and they have to break it first to avoid cantamination. The deacons also have to figure out where we sit each week so that they can give us our special tray. And perhaps the most difficult thing of all, I then have to choke down a nasty piece of gluten-free bread (which my children and spouse seem to like well enough, but I can’t stand).
While a bit of a thread-jack, I bring this up for a couple of reasons:
1. Believe it or not, it can get worse than Wonder Bread. Plus for me, gluten-free bread does taste like the sacrament, because I refuse to eat it at any other time.
2. The Sacrament has been somewhat changed for me. While it is somewhat embarassing to be the focus of so much special attention just to partake each week, and I’m uncomfortable being the center of attention during such a communal time, it has also made me recognize the importance of the ordinance in a new way. That is, the fact that Bishops and Aaronic Priesthood holders and their leaders have been willing to go to so much trouble to ensure we get the sacrament every week, has made me realize how fortunate I am to participate. It also makes me want to be a better person each week to “deserve” all the trouble. That is, I want to take the sacrament more worthily, because it is such an effort. Maybe it somehow correlates to a better appreciation of the Savior’s incomprehensible sacrifice in my (our) behalf, I’m not sure.
As a perhaps interesting aside, the Catholic church won’t allow non-gluten wafers in their sacrament, leaving Celiac’s sufferers a difficult choice. Thus I’m glad to be in a church that understands the concept of not being too literal about the ordinance. In any event, in my good-old-gluten-days, I was in plenty of wards that served multi-grain and other various types of bread, so maybe you just need to be put in charge of the Teachers Quorum in your ward. :)
Peter Asplund
Yes, this would be a good project for the young women. . .
. . . or young men.
(In the latter case, the ward may see the added benefit of learning the real efficacy of blessing the food to prevent harm to the consumer ;) ).
One of the families in our ward can’t take the bread either, I don’t know if it is the same as you Peter and your family.
The deacons pass a nut in a cup to the member of their family. The nut is placed in the cup by the teachers, put on the brad tray and then the bread is broken and placed on the other side of the tray. They don’t have to worry about contamination that way.
Maybe your Bishop would allow a nut in a cup, better tasting than what you’re doing now, and it serves the same purpose, easier for everyone too!
Just a suggestion.
For me I don’t care what it is, as long as I get to take it.
They’re emblems. Why not have tasty ones?
When I grew up in a branch in Illinois, we often had homemade wheat bread. I don’t recall who made it, but it was good stuff.
I used to be YMP. It wasn’t unusual for me to have to run across the street to the White Hen to buy some Wonder type bread when a teacher forgot his assignment.
I have heard that when the brethren partake of the sacrament in their Thursday meetings, they don’t break the bread into the itsy bitsy pieces most of us experience, but rather into substantial quarters so they can really experience the bread.
I don’t think there is any rule preventing a ward from using seven grain bread or breaking it into larger pieces; it is just convention and convenience that keeps us to scraps of Wonder white bread.
My 11 yo boys class loved it when I told them they could have cookies and milk for the Sacrament. I don’t think the bishop would approve it though.
“As for unique bread, my thought has been to assign some of our ward’s members, especially women who live alone, to bake bread for our sacrament. I think they would feel it a special task to prepare the Lord’s supper, and the congregation would know it was made by someone who revered its symbolism. ”
Great idea. Bishops, take note! Future bishops, take note!
Adam’s last comment seems to be the only one that offers substance.
When we associate and focus on taste with the atonement, I wonder if we aren’t just being spiritual lazy and failing to focus on the atonement itself rather than just the symbol; in whatever size, shape, consistency or taste. IMO, its in bad taste to do so.
Plain, cheap bread seems the most appropriate companion for tap water. The symbolism is that we don’t care what we’re using for the symbols. There is scriptural support that that stand puts us in harmony with him of whose body and blood they are symbols.
I know this will be controversial, and many people may take issue, but I want to propose a uniform bread standard for sacrament meeting. Enough of this never knowing each week what kind of bread I’ll be eating. The endless hours of anticipation on Sunday morning.
I also propose that the uniform bread standard should be sourdough. Now that’s a bread that helps me feel closer to The Lord, and thankful for the small miracles in this world.
I once, as a young eager deacon, brought in some garlic and onion pumpernickel bread.
The bishop said he didn’t want to have to hand out breath mints after the sacrament was passed.
Peter, maybe the gluten is what allows the Catholics’ wafers to do their transmogrificombobulation-thing and turn into the body of Christ. In that case, Catholics come up against predestination issues: “If you’re allergic to the body of Christ, then it must be your own fault, and you’re not meant to be saved, just like all those damned kids who couldn’t stay alive long enough to be baptized. What sissies!”
This seems to be a lighter post anyway, so I pray ye’ll pardon a little persiflage. :)
In our ward, we have only 3 young men ages 12-18 who attend on a semi-regular basis. So once a month or so, the sacrament for us consists of whichever variety of bread a member of the bishopric was able to find at the grocery store around the corner minutes before sacrament meeting when the young man assigned to bring bread doesn’t show up. I’m in the bishopric and I’ve always wanted to show up with Oreo cookies or something for the sacrament and just explain that to the ward that there were dire circumstances. Are we the only ward with a pesky “sacrament bread” ox that is constantly finding his way in to the mire?
M,
We have the low-YM-count problem too and faced much the same thing you did.
Instead of an ox-in-the-mire rush to the Piggly Wiggly on a Sunday, we ask the assigned Teacher to bring the bread on Mutual night (for us, Wednesday). Bread freezes very well in the Church building’s freezer, and that way we know that bread will be there Sunday morning.
Bread also thaws quickly, so even with a last-second dash to finish preparing before Sacrament Meeting, by the time the priests are ready to break it apart, it’s soft.
And on those occasions where the young man forgets to bring bread to Mutual, the YM leader can put his arm around the lad and take him to the Piggly Wiggly on Wednesday night, not Sunday morning.
Peter,
I also have Celiac’s, and it runs in my family as well — my mother, brothers, and one of my sisters all have it. Since I travel often and am not at church every Sunday, I mainly just let the bread pass by without partaking; however, this often leads to the deacon (or the elder, given it’s a single’s ward) passing on with the water, too.
I’ve wondered if there’s something only half-saving about taking only half of the sacrament, though…and also whether the people sitting around me are thinking, “Gee, did is it possible to repent -that- fast between the bread and the water?”
But I’m with Nate and others on this: if I could eat the bread, I’d rather have something more hearty and unique than plain white bread which, while it signifies our thriftiness as a people, also isn’t very healthy. The sacrament bread is food for the soul; it should also be healthy for the body. The idea of homemade bread is a wonderful one.
Wouldn’t it be great to use the unleavened bread of Passover? Symbolism, of course, and the distinctive taste and experience that Nate talks about.
Or something from our own tradition—maybe the johnnycake the pioneers ate?
Gavin (post #18),
Although flippantly stated, I believe that is the gist of the Catholic argument. (That is the literalness of the sacrament, transubstantiation, doctrinally requiring wheat bread and wine; not, of course, any sense of predestination making Celiac’s deserving of their plight.)
Of course, if my doctor recommended coffee or marijuana for some serious ailment, I would definitely have big problems going along, so I’m not inclined to make too light of others’ beliefs, even when I disagree. And believe me, if you saw my oldest after he eats wheat, I would strongly disagree if I were Catholic.
Last I read (and I may be behind on developments and things may have improved), some American nuns were attempting to create an authorized wafer utilizing just a slight amount of a part of wheat that doesn’t contain gluten, but to date were getting rejected by the Vatican.
Chad too -Thanks for sharing. Maybe we can do something to pre-empt our problem. Our youth don’t usually meet at the church since it take 30-45 minutes to get there from our ward (chapel isn’t within our ward boundaries), but your more general point that I am taking is that perhaps there is a solution that we can find that isn’t a last minute trip to the grocery store.
Peter, a friend of mine who had celiac would often use a corn or rice cracker for the sacrament. I don’t blame you for disliking that gluten-free bread.
Dragon, thanks for the YW project idea. I’m going to pass it on to the girls in our ward.
I agree with Kaimi—why can’t the YM bake bread? I’d think they’d really get into all the muscle-building kneading that goes on. And what better way to impress on the YM the sacredness of this symbol then have them invest more time, energy, and planning than a run to the grocery store.
Every once in a while someone brings in some King’s Hawaiian Bread for use in the sacrament. It’s sweet. And wonderful. Sort of tree-of-lifeish.
I think that in addition to a richer flavor of bread , we need the deacons to wear the same uniform tie, walk with their left hand behind their back, and beautiful pipe organ music should be playing. The teachers should use a consecrated knife to cut the bread. Then it would all be more reverent. Pomp makes everything sacred….. …..not.
In Israel we used to get these crackers made from wheat for some reason. Otherwise it was the plain, drab, white stuff. Now there’s a place for bready variety; a thousand different kinds, hot, beautiful, sold in the street for pennies.
I went to church once in Innsbruck, Austria, where they used Vollkornbrot (same as rye, I think) for the sacrament. Nasty, nasty stuff. I thought it a small symbol of my devotion and desire to take the sacrament that I choked the vile substance down.
The best tasting bread I ever had was the plain white stuff at one particular period of my life when I wasn’t able to take the Sacrament for a few weeks (logistics problem rather than a spiritual one). Until then I hadn’t realised what a difference to your life it can make. It was wonderful to be able to partake, and the bread never tasted so good.
Slightly off-topic – the most interesting Sacrament meeting I attended in my Ward, was the one where they discovered just two minutes before the service that they had run out of sacrament cups and the deacons brought round big trays holding full-sized glasses, each containing a half inch of water. Fortunately we’re not in a populous ward (less than 100 at Sacrament). Full marks for initiative though!
We use fresh flatbread from a tandoor oven. There should be some perks even though we’re not able to meet with any other members.
But I agree with UKAnn. Just being able to take the Sacrament is a blessing.
I’m on a strict low carb diet to control blood sugar. My wife has bought me some of the new low carb bread but even that has to many carbs in it for me to choose to eat it. The gist of this, for me, is that for the last 6 years the only bread I eat is the sacrement so it is a bit special.
Someone probably mentioned this before, but I don’t have time to read the entire thread.
White bread is used because a lot of people are allergic to wheat. End of story.
We rarely, if ever used white bread in my old ward (in Richmond, VA). We usually use whole-grain or something. But I remember the days when I worked at a local member-owned bakery (the Great Harvest franchise). The owner would bring a different bread every Sunday, and he kept saying that he was working them up to chedder-cheese garlic.
Doesn’t white bread contain wheat flour?
Yes, white bread is made from refined wheat — meaning they’ve taken all the good stuff out of the grain and left very little of the original covering.
I just checked the contents on my bag of all-purpose flour (which is what I make my white bread from). Wheat flour is the #1 ingredient. Then they added a few vitamins.
I’m going to bring the idea of home-made bread to the RS president and see if we can get past seeing the young men come in slinging that bag of wal-mart bread back and forth as he trudges into the building.
22. I think that using unleavened bread would be a great idea.. Major problem though would be crumbs. I’ve offered to bring in Matzoh. The objection seems to be that the act of noticing that there is a different bread in the tray would distract from what you are supposed to be thinking about…
While I’m sympathetic to Nate’s plight (and glad that not infrequently our creative ward has other fare than wonderbread), I’m not sure that he’s on theoretically sure footing. As I think about the Eucharist, it seems to me that it is the transformation of the act of communal eating that is the miracle. Jesus and his closest followers were eating a meal together, were sealing their community through the close interaction involved in consuming food in a group setting, reclining about their shared table. Jesus then told them that this act of community could also become an act of communion, and the notion of Christians eating together took on an entirely different meaning.
In a sense Wonder Bread is representative of the food people eat–if you raided the pantries of American Mormons, I suspect that unless you were in a ritzy zip code where bread is obligated to have herbs and vegetable matter strewn between partially cracked wheat kernels attached to seven different grains, you would tend to find the airy moistness of Wonder filling the larder. When we lived in Russia, where the bread is quite tasty, we ate a variety of rich, dark breads, which to the Russians was just “bread” but to us was a rare treat.
I’m not being dogmatic–I like physical symbols and startling images and am sympathetic to the idea of a host wafer or unleavened bread, or even just something that tastes good, like onion or olive or rosemary bread (pardon my zip code), but at the core I think this particular sacrament is designed to consecrate and communalize the very act of eating, to illustrate the extent to which Jesus can infiltrate not just our exclusively religious behaviors but even the consummately physical act of taking nourishment. In that sense, the blessings we give on the food provide continuity between our supper and the Lord’s Supper.
Our recent solution to this tension between the earthy and the sacred asepcts of the Lord’s Supper is to install our own _trapeza_–we are attempting to invite churchmembers to our house each Sunday to enjoy a “holiday” meal.
Unless I’m mistaken, we actually had someone bake homemade bread that was used at our Sacrament table today. The crust was quite thick, and it was, well, yummy.
I hope that rating the yumminess of Sacrament Meeting bread isn’t the first step on the road to apostasy. : )
Oh, forgot to mention – the homemade bread most definitely was not white, but very much a wholegrain loaf. Wheat, most likely, but I’m not really sure.
Banana-Nut bread baked by Strengthening Families Committee members would be divine!
Add some jam to it, and your ward will be ready for translation.
As an update to my earlier post about our need to send a member of the bishopric out to buy bread when the deacon forgets, well he forgot again last Sunday. Fortunately a new high-end bread shop opened across the street from our building, so we were able to enjoy a real treat of the multigrain variety this Sunday AND we were able to avoid the embarrassment of having a member of the bishopric walk through the chapel during the opening hymn to hand a grocery bag to those preparing a sacrament (because the new bread store is so close, we can break the sabbath and get the bread in the hands of our priests before sacrament meeting starts and thus without drawing too much attention.) Our problems are solved…sort of.
Peter #7:
Off topic message here, but for those of us who don’t eat wheat, an important one.
My family has been gluten free for a while now. Some time ago I ran across a recipe for gluten free bread that is fabulous! It’s available here: http://www.allergygrocer.com/id1097.html
You can get the tapioca starch (and you do need starch, not pearls or flakes) at any Asian market. I buy the stuff in boxes that contain 25 one-pound bags. Costs me about $12. If you buy tapioca starch at a regular supermarket, it’ll be ridiculously expensive. Also, the recipe calls for corn starch. I’ve used, that, but I have also had very good success with glutenous rice starch. It doesn’t have any gluten protein in it, it’s just called glutinous because its made from short grain, sticky sushi type rice. You can get the glutenous rice starch (or flour as its sometimes called) at the Asian markets as well. I pay about the same for it as I do for the tapioca starch.
As for the chickpea flour, you’ll need a good mill for those. I bought this one: http://www.cfamilyresources.com/golden_grain_grinder.htm A bit more expensive than most and not terribly stylish, but it’s a brute and will grind those chickpeas (otherwise known as garbonzo beans) quickly. It can also grind up rice, millet, other beans, corn and any other non-gluten grain you might want to use. Don’t try grinding tapioca pearls with it though. That caused me a few headaches.
You can get xanthan gum at a specialty market. In the east, Whole Foods sells it.
The bread that comes out of this is really VERY good. It’s the only non-gluten bread I’ve ever tried that has a springy texture and actually hangs together, rather than crumble. Plus, it freezes well. I always make four loaves and freeze three at a time.
Nate: “Perhaps there is some notion that white bread somehow symbolizes purity and cleanliness.”
Some of us were taught that it had to be white bread because the body of Christ could not be represented by anything darker. Darker breads would represent Christ as a Negro (yes, that was then the politically correct term) who could not hold the priesthood, rather than as our great high priest.
I wonder if that was merely local to my ward as a youth.
“I wonder if that was merely local to my ward as a youth.”
One hopes. Is this the Jim Rasmussen from the Chelwood Ward, Albuquerque East Stake? If so, howdy. How’s the ward? How’s James?