P. Gorazd Cetkovský, O.Carm.
I would like to please especially those who prefer to grasp things that are completely concrete and easily imaginable, who in all things complex love and need "simple" explanations, who feel more like "materialists" than deeply spiritual people, and who usually manage to observe everything around them and what is happening during prayer... With this kind of disposition, the liturgy offers us a very grateful field, because "something is done" during it, and we either participate in it or at least observe it. Often many prompts can be gleaned from the course of the ceremonies or from gestures and postures. A brief glance into the past can further emphasize and solidify this. So let’s together focus—as much as possible in a "simple" way—on one detail during the celebration of the Eucharist, which is so dear to the Church that it has not given it up for two millennia: the breaking of the Eucharistic bread.
The key significance for this tradition is undoubtedly the mentions of the breaking of bread contained in the New Testament. When I tried to search for them, I realized that they could actually be classified into several groups:
- miraculous multiplications of bread described in the individual Gospels: Jesus "took the five loaves and the two fish, looked up to heaven and blessed them, broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before them" (Mk 6:41; similarly Mat 14:19; Lk 9:16);
- reports of the Last Supper of the Lord Jesus with His disciples: for example, "While they were eating, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to his disciples..." (Mat 26:26; similarly Mk 14:22; Lk 22:19; 1 Cor 11:24);
- reports of the Eucharist in the early Church (1 Cor 10:16); in the early Christian era, the Eucharist was simply referred to as "the breaking of bread".
I became interested in this topic when I noticed that the narrative about the disciples at Emmaus depicts the most important moment of the entire described event with the words: "When He was at the table with them, He took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to them. (Then) their eyes were opened and they recognized Him" (Lk 24:30-31).
Thus, the roots of our liturgical custom reach back to the New Testament. A question may immediately arise: Was the breaking of bread something unusual at that time? Experts claim,1 that Jews in biblical times mostly ate barley bread (as, for instance, in the stories about Elisha – 2 Kings 4:42). Its preparation was the task of women (or their servants, maidservants). Every morning, the woman ground the flour, worked the dough, started the fire, and baked the bread. It was baked on heated stones or in primitive ovens, where the breads were "stuck" to the wall. Alternatively, they were placed in hot ashes. The bread therefore resembled thicker flatbreads and was probably neither too delicate nor soft. Jews did not cut it with a knife at meals but broke it by hand. This is evident from the words of the prophet Isaiah, who invites towards mercy for the poor: "Break your bread for the hungry..." (Isa 58:7). From the passion narrative, we also remember (John 13:26) that sometimes they dipped morsels before putting them in their mouths—probably for easier chewing.
However, when the Lord Jesus broke the bread, it concealed something more than mere necessity dictated by the external form of bread at that time. It was a kind of entrance rite at a communal meal. Sharing bread is "by nature" an expression of friendship, alliance, and affection. Such an act holds extraordinary power, especially in moments of scarcity when it is about the last piece of bread. This was equally true in Israel. Food had a much deeper significance in the consciousness of the Jews than merely serving to satisfy hunger:
- eating is a uniting event for the household, family, or circle of friends;
- it always represents a religious event, for the food we have is a gift from God;
- therefore, mealtime was accompanied by prayers.
In the family, the father presided over this communal event, and it was his duty to pronounce the prayer over the bread before the meal, break it, and distribute it to others at the table. This custom was preserved even later when it no longer had its original function, but merely represented the ceremonial beginning of the meal. Those who did not participate in this introductory rite could not participate in the subsequent communal meal. Jewish domestic liturgy preserves this tradition of the family meal to this day.
Eating from one loaf is an eloquent gesture of unity for all participants. This is underscored in Paul's first letter to the Corinthians: "Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of one bread" (1 Cor 10:17). (We might also recall, for instance, the custom of sharing the wafer at Christmas, which we know from Silesia or Poland). In ancient Eastern liturgies, during the Eucharist, only the celebrant broke the transformed bread. If there were many communicants and the breaking took longer, it was accompanied by longer prayers from the rest of the assembly of believers. This aspect of celebrating the Eucharist is also mentioned in the introduction to the Roman Missal: "The breaking of the bread – as the Eucharist was called in apostolic times – clearly demonstrates the power and importance of the sign of unity of all in one bread and also the sign of love when one bread is divided among brothers."2
Later—it seems—among Christians, this understanding of the gesture of sharing Christ's Body diminished. At the same time, the popularity of symbolic interpretations of individual parts of the liturgy increased.3 For example, the church in Syria in the 5th century saw in the breaking of the Eucharistic bread and its distribution to the faithful a symbol of the risen Christ being revealed to many people: to women, disciples, and others. "And now He is revealed, in the reception of the Body, to the sons of the Church" (Narsai, Homily 17).
In subsequent times, attention shifted more to the detail that the bread is divided into individual morsels by breaking. This act, wherein the bread is forcefully broken into pieces by bare hands, became associated in the eyes of Christians with the violent death of the Lord Jesus on the cross. Therefore, in the breaking of the transformed bread – the Body of Christ – before the reception of the faithful, a symbol of the suffering and killing of Christ's human body for our salvation was seen.
Christians likely became aware of this symbol very early. Some ancient versions of the text of Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, which contains the account of the establishment of the Eucharist, state instead of the words: "This is my Body, which is given for you..." the words: "the Body which is borken for you..." (1 Cor 11:24). Thus, breaking is here simply another expression for Christ's giving of Himself.
However, in this figurative interpretation of the gesture of breaking the Eucharist, no account is taken of the mention in the Gospel of John that none of Jesus' bones were broken on Calvary, which likens Him to the Passover lamb, which was to be prepared for the Passover meal in just such a way: without any of its bones being broken (John 19:36; cf. Ex 12:46). It seems that ancient Christians were not bothered by this inconsistency at all. After all, it corresponds well to their good discernment between the event of the Passion itself and its symbol.
In a similar way, St. Hippolytus of Rome (+235) sees the breaking of bread during the Eucharist as a symbol of Christ's death also mentioned in the Apostolic Tradition. From this line of thought originates, for example, a patristic text that we read in the breviary: "The joyful news of our salvation says this: Jesus took bread, blessed it, and said to His holy disciples and apostles: Take, eat. This is my Body, which is broken for you for the forgiveness of sins..."4
Especially Eastern Church Fathers (St. John Chrysostom, Eutychius) later speak of the breaking of bread during the Eucharist as symbolizing the death that the Lord underwent for us. In the Byzantine liturgy, these ideas were then applied even differently: the leavened bread used in it is divided into small morsels using a small knife, which is intentionally compared to the spear that pierced Jesus' side. Thus, the knife imitates the spear both in shape.
In the West, the association of the breaking of bread with Christ's death only appears from the 11th century but then gained popularity, and even after the Council of Trent, great emphasis was placed on it in explanations of the Holy Mass. It is interesting that our Western liturgy, even after the "invention" of small hosts, which occurred around the 12th century and facilitated the distribution of the Eucharist to a larger number of believers without the undesirable crumbling of the transformed bread (and, unfortunately, simultaneously erased the symbolism of receiving from one bread), nevertheless did not abandon the breaking of the Eucharistic bread: it has always remained preserved at least during the breaking of the host from which the celebrant receives. Hence, it always used bread that could be broken, not one that would be cut. The liturgical prescription explicitly requires this even today: "The Eucharistic bread ... must be such that the priest can truly break the host into more parts during the Mass with the participation of the people and at least offer it to some believers."5
Our imagination may also be enriched by later symbolic interpretations from the times when the celebrant only broke one large host and the faithful received small hosts. It was prescribed to break the host into three parts. One of them, according to an ancient custom, the priest placed in the chalice with the Blood of the Lord; the second he himself received, and the third was originally reserved for the sick, from whom the Eucharist was to be brought after the Mass. Already Amalar of Metz (+around 850) in his allegorical interpretation of the Holy Mass notes this meaning: the part of the host mixed with the Blood of the Lord recalls His risen Body, the part the priest receives recalls the Body of Christ on earth—the Church, and the part destined for the sick recalls the presence of Christ's Body in the grave. This symbolism was later modified: the three parts of the broken host reminded of the victorious Church (the saints in heaven), the struggling (Christians experiencing earthly life now), and the suffering (souls in purgatory). These interpretations then sustained for a long time in reflections on the Holy Mass for a wide range of ordinary believers and served as a help against the trivialization of the view of the Holy Mass—just as this article is meant to serve.
I do not know if I have succeeded in avoiding heaviness and adequately capturing our attention and imagination. In summary, let me say what I wanted to express: the breaking of the transformed host during the Holy Mass is not an insignificant detail, a mere circumstance that we overlook. Today, we are even sometimes alerted to it by modern sound technology: I was truly chilled when during one Holy Mass, in which I concelebrated, the priest who was the main celebrant – by the way: quite a big guy – energetically broke several hosts at once, making a loud crack, and the microphones reliably transmitted it (and the amplifier amplified) throughout the entire church... Surely, it can also be useful for us to associate this ancient gesture of breaking with the thought of the suffering of the Lord Jesus, by which we were redeemed and which reconciled us into a family of God's children, the unity of Christ's body in one Spirit.
The Czech Missal, in the instructions for celebrating Mass with the participation of the people, prescribes after the sign of peace: "The priest takes the host, breaks it over the paten, and drops a small fragment into the chalice..." and further states:
Meanwhile, it is sung or said:
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.
Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world, grant us peace.
If the breaking takes a longer time, this calling may be repeated several times. However, the last call always ends with the words: grant us peace.
This is indeed the original role of this chant in the Roman liturgy: to accompany as a prayer the breaking of the Eucharist for the reception by the faithful. Knowing this "native environment" of the invocation of the Lamb of God can also help us with mindfulness. Thus, even when we cannot see everyone directly on the altar (and microphones do not always alert us that the host is being broken), we have the possibility to sing this chant very addressedly. We know more clearly to whom we are speaking: to the Lord who redeemed us by the sacrifice of His life and now gives Himself to us as food... We ask for His mercy.
