Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2016 September 15

= September 15 =

I don't know why but I wondered this when I was young
If your only calories were 1 non-oversized Eucharist per consecration ceremony and you're a priest near unlimited wafers, water and vitamins then how long would you live? You say the most Cliff Notes legal ceremony possible (but one right after the other with fast talking) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 00:24, 15 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Your "question" is based on a false premise.  Catholic communion can be given using ~any~ sort of bread and wine, even chunks of fortified multi-nut wheat bread and unfermented wine (name your favorite fruit juice) under necessity.  The "standard" wafers and red wine are not required. μηδείς (talk) 01:40, 15 September 2016 (UTC)


 * There is a standard wafer size is there not? A big one that's broken too but most people don't get those pieces. I'm sure that any bread, wine and altar can be used if you were trapped on a desert island or something but then you'd just eat as much wafer as you want without consecrating it and only eat the Body once a day or week. It's just a stupid nonsense question a child makes. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:04, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Maybe I'm wrong, but isn't the "Eucharist" the ritual rather than the bread and wine themselves? The word comes from Greek meaning "thanksgiving" or "gratitude". ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 01:53, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * says it can mean the elements but it's the third definition. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 02:13, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Take a look at Micronutrient deficiency, imagine which nutrients your priest is not getting from either his wafers or his vitamins, and you can follow the links to see how bad it would turn out. Someguy1221 (talk) 02:54, 15 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Unless some change has been made in the last 2 years, Medeis is wrong. Not just any bread will do for the Eucharist. For bread to be valid matter for the Eucharist, it must be made solely of wheat, contain enough gluten to effect the confection of bread, be free of foreign materials, and unaffected by any preparation or baking methods which would alter its nature. The Vatican has found gluten-free hosts unacceptable.   So, while Catholics believe in transubstantiation, it has to be specific bread that is used.  † Dismas †|(talk) 03:16, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Shouldn't you be hanging on a cross, somewhere, Dismas? I have italicised the words "under necessity", since you seem to have missed them, and linkified them, since you seem to have missed my meaning.  As usual, SMW is just throwing crap against the wall to see what sticks, so good luck with that. μηδείς (talk) 04:38, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Format and link your text however you want. You're still wrong. † Dismas †|(talk) 11:32, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Does the same restrictiveness apply to the wine? Does it have to actual wine or is grape juice allowed? (It's certainly allowed in Protestant churches.) ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 12:09, 15 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Freshly pressed grape juice which has not been pasteurized "mustum" can be used instead of wine, with the permission of the bishop, given some necessity like alcoholism. Mustum has a very small but measurable amount of alcohol naturally present due to fermentation on the vine by wild yeast. source.  According to one of the sources given above, communion bread must have a measurable amount of gluten, but it may be present at less than 1% of the normal level.


 * Apparently the whole gluten question only became an issue in 1995, as mentioned in one of the sources above, and it was Cardinal Ratzinger who propagated the new doctrine. As for the idea that only wafers like the ones pictured below can be used for Mass, that is a facile generalization.  Until age 16 I regularly received Catholic communion in the form of a small, spoon-sized chunk of bread dipped in wine.  In extremis, a priest stranded on a desert island could press berries manually into a chalice and use hoagie rolls from his shipwreck to celebrate Mass. μηδείς (talk) 19:39, 16 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Blueberries? What about Chinese rice wine? Sake? Tomato juice? Apples? Coconut water? Coconut milk? The juice of the olive? Breadfruit? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:36, 16 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I'd like to know where the Bible says what specific bread is to be used. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:08, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * It's not in the bible, but in the Catechism of the Catholic Church (which just says "wheat bread"), and further clarified by announcements by the Vatican. It would have also been present in catechisms that predate the linked one, though the history there is a bit scattered. The bible is much more vague, with Jesus' words on it simply being translated as "bread". The vatican's argument is that we have to use as bread what that word would have meant at the time - what Jesus would have been referring to. Someguy1221 (talk) 04:13, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * In theory it should be Matzo, which likewise punishes those who can't eat gluten. It's too bad Jesus didn't say "The Eucharist was made for man; man was not made for the Eucharist." ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 04:18, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

Depends on how much body fat you have, 'cause without fat, you have no calories to burn. Raquel Baranow (talk) 03:46, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Maybe I misread the question, you're saying a person on an island has unlimited wafers, water and vitamins, essentially a bread/water diet. I lived on 2-parts corn, 1-part soybeans, a pinch of salt and vitamin C for a year as an experiment when I was younger. Don't think I could do it with just corn. Raquel Baranow (talk) 03:52, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Hmm, but if it's really human flesh, then that has both protein and fat (and no gluten). What does the Church say about that?  The accident versus essence distinction is quite subtle (and brilliant; honestly I'm not making fun of it), so subtle that it's hard for me to evaluate how the congregant's body should respond.  My guess is that the nutritional content is considered an accident, not of the essence, so the body would respond as it does to bread. --Trovatore (talk) 04:26, 15 September 2016 (UTC)


 * Hostia_i_komunikanty.JPG the record, it's very clear to me that you're talking about the stuff that is fairly standardized in catholic churches. For anyone who doesn't know what that is, our more appropriate article is sacramental bread. This describes an 18 minute mass. A hungry priest could likely shave a few minutes off that. Eucharistic_discipline describes that some people have rules about fasting prior to communion. SemanticMantis (talk) 13:44, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * So, as I understand it, you're assuming one standard wafer per communion, and you're also allowing unlimited water and vitamins. You don't mention wine, but that's a standard part of communion.  I note the significant absence of salt and other minerals.  Per SemanticMantis, let's assume a 15-minute communion and 64 communions per day (allowing time to sleep and for non-communion needs such as using the bathroom).  According to this source, there are 0.88 calories in a standard communion wafer and about 24 calories in an ounce of communion wine.  If you drink an ounce of wine per communion (the source says half an ounce, but I don't think you are obligated to restrain yourself), that's going to be about 1600 calories a day.  That's enough calories to keep you alive indefinitely, although you aren't going to stay alive indefinitely, because salt deficiency will kill you fairly quickly.  If you don't have any wine and have to survive on just the wafers, water, and vitamins, then you are only going to consume 56 calories per day, which is not sufficient to support life.  My guess is that you can live about two and a half to three months on that caloric intake; I'm basing this on the experience of the 1981 Irish hunger strike, in which the hunger strikers ingested only water and salt, typically dying in the tenth week.  However, salt deficiency might kill you before then.  Also, the likelihood is that you would become unable to conduct the Eucharist at some earlier point.  John M Baker (talk) 14:43, 15 September 2016 (UTC)

I marvel at the inquiries that appear on this reference desk sometimes.--WaltCip (talk) 15:11, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Canon law says "Can. 905 §1 Apart from those cases in which the law allows him to celebrate or concelebrate the Eucharist a number of times on the same day, a priest may not celebrate more than once a day. §2 If there is a scarcity of priests, the local Ordinary may for a good reason allow priests to celebrate twice in one day or even, if pastoral need requires it, three times on Sundays or holydays of obligation." which seems to limit the number of times per day, however, if I remember rightly there isn't a limit to one wafer or sip of wine with the priest sometimes consuming the excess rather than storing it (especially if you don't have a "tabernacle...immovable, made of solid and non-transparent material, and so locked as to give the greatest security against any danger of profanation." Can. 938§3. Rmhermen (talk) 16:22, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * I think the other obvious question is why you'd only consume the consecrated host. AFAICT, even in ordinary circumstances, there isn't necessarily any restriction on consuming the unconsecrated host  although I guess scenarios could arise if you're fooling around. Even if there is some restriction, the Catholic church generally recognises necessity. If you found yourself with only the hosts, wine?, water & vitamins (no minerals even salt other than that in the hosts & wine I assume), I'd assume you should still celebrate the eucharist every day if possible for religious reasons. But in terms of nutrition, you should do what you can to keep yourself alive rather than fooling around with trying to celebrate the eucharist each time. BTW, in terms of Trovatore's point above, I'm pretty sure the nutritional effect is solely of the bread (and wine). See e.g. . Note that if you could really only consume 1 each time and has to celebrate the eucharist each time and didn't have wine, you'd surely be making yourself worse off by doing so. Nil Einne (talk) 16:57, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * See this recent discussion about a "bread and water" diet, which seems to be what we're discussing here. Alansplodge (talk) 17:23, 15 September 2016 (UTC)
 * Sacramental bread is people! Clarityfiend (talk) 23:53, 15 September 2016 (UTC)


 * When they say "profanation", is that a fancy word for "spoilage" or going stale? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:01, 16 September 2016 (UTC)


 * It could include a variety of things like intentional Host desecration, unintentional acts such as knocking the hosts down or animals walking on or eating the hosts etc. See  for some discussion of how the Catholic church feels hosts should be treated. Nil Einne (talk) 13:11, 16 September 2016 (UTC)


 * I recall one Sunday when I went to receive Communion that the wafer slipped through my fingers and fell to the floor.  The priest quickly picked it up, popped it in his mouth and gave me another one.   In the Church of England, reservation of the Sacrament got in through the back door when the liturgy and accompanying rubrics were modernised a few years ago.   The 1928 Prayer Book failed its passage through the House of Commons because it expressly legalised reservation.   The priest (and anyone else he calls on) can consume the reserved Sacrament before it becomes unusable. 86.128.234.7 (talk) 23:57, 18 September 2016 (UTC)