Why Does the Host Taste Like Cardboard

[PhuturePriest]

Byzantine (or perhaps Coptic, I can't remember) liturgies take so long that they actually bake the wafers during the Mass itself. Those hosts are fresher than Winterfresh.

[Amppax]

On 5/30/2016 at 3:30 PM, Nihil Obstat said:

I have heard that for some people with extremely severe celiac's disease, even the tiny bit of gluten from the commingling is too much. I have not been able to properly verify that though.

My aunt has this level of celiac's, she simply didn't recieve very often. 

 

[Nihil Obstat]

Truthfinder has told me about someone at a Latin Mass who receives only from a small chalice which is set aside specifically for that purpose. I had not heard of it before, but it seems to make sense.

[Pia Jesu]

Given the sad state of my own fungiform papilla (basically the "home turf" of taste buds), the concerns of celiac sufferers, the deficits of texture, bulk and even (interestingly) temperature of the hosts used at Mass...maybe we should take this somewhat tongue-in-cheek (no pun intended) discussion to a deeper level.  Check out the discussion on the role of taste in sacred settings at http://www.sensorystudies.org/sensorial-investigations/the-skin-of-religion/

While Brittanica reminds us that "ancient philosophers called the human senses 'the windows of the soul,'" there are multiple receptor organs (the cerebral cortex, for one) at work in our experience of taste--let alone the possibility that learned behaviors may play a role.  I think Era Might is right (nice rhyme!) when he says that "there is nothing essential in the Eucharist about little bland white hosts."  Receiving a small piece of actual, leavened bread--with the Sacred Wine sure helps bring the imagination/mind to the Last Supper...and the true meaning of receiving the sacrament.