Do you think it's disrespectful or clever to use Holy Communion wafers as a snack?

LOL.
Wow! That’s really too much, even for my heathen ass. Are they actually sold as communion wafers, or are they marketed as simple wafers?
I really do think that it’s a tad disrespectful if they aren’t marketed simply as “wafers.”

I’d rather someone ate those than Big Macs. I believe there’s nothing supernatural about the wafers. They are just food that some believe have magical properties.

But I think the blind eye turned to all the child-fucking is doing more to undermine the religion than those trying to lose weight.

@TheOnlyNeffie I had to laugh. I grew up with the greatest respect for Communion in our lovely, historical Episcopal Church. My priest just turned over in his grave.
I have not seen any in stores but I’ve read they are in some of them on the snack aisle. I’d personally love to see the packaging. YOU CAN BUY THEM ON AMAZON.

@Aster I’d love to see the packaging, also! I think that if they are being marketed without any references to the church or religion in any aspect, then it is no big deal. They are edible, although disgusting. I grew up Byzantine Catholic, so we had actual bread – not wafers.
I want to not laugh just to avoid being rude, but the concept is hilarious to me.
I think that if they are actually being sold with the packaging suggesting the intent to be used for religious means, well, it does strike me as disrespectful. I may end up in the minority on this, but, it just sounds like a “don’t go there” kind of thing to me. LOL.

Online anyone can buy the wafers or the “hard bread.” One customer said, “These crackers tasted more like Gilbert Gottfried than Jesus. I was very underwhelmed by the taste, texture, and transubstantiation.”
I can’t get over it. lol

@Aster LMAO!! Stop it, you’re cracking me up.

No, not in my view. Is it disrespectful for clergymen to abuse little children?
I know this is not the point, but….......

I didn’t know you could buy them in stores. Though when I was going through my first Communion, I was told, by the priest “the body of Christ can keep you feeling full when you are hungry.”
That’s just plain funny.
sorry dad, but it is

@shego wow; what if he meant it as a metaphor? It really sounds like a Jesus quote.

@TheOnlyNeffie no; I just looked by using my “back” arrow and it’s gone. Let me try one other tactic for you.

@Aster he might have, but whatever, he said it, I interpreted it,

The communion wafers only become the body of Christ when they have been blessed during the Communion Rites carried out by the priest during mass so I suppose eating them before hand isn’t really ‘wrong’ per say, I just can’t see the point!

I don’t know much about Catholicism in its finer details, but I always thought that the wafers don’t become “holy” until blessed by the priest. (I see @sakura‘s response above pretty much agrees with that.) So until then, they’re just wafers. I don’t see anything wrong with it.

@sakura the reason people buy them is as a substitute for fattening tortilla chips. They snack on them to lose weight.

@Seelix, @sakura your both right its not sacred until its blessed.

@Aster But surely they don’t fill you up they aren’t very big so you’d have to eat heaps of them and if they are dipping them into dips (which I am guessing are not healthy) then again why? There are loads of other healthy wafer products on the market that are surely just as cheap and much more tasty!

Yes, but you don’t have to use them with dips. They are eaten alone also, not as a meal to fill you up but as a snack to tide you over. Something low cal to munch on.

I understand what they are being used for but still don’t understand why people would choose them or even think to eat them as a snack, there are heaps of other things out there that you can eat that are much more tasty and filling. Each to there own I suppose!
A snack is supposed to fill you up a bit to put yo on untill your main meal, surley the more taste it has the more filling it feels (well thats how I feel full anyway!)

They’re chosen due to having no fat grams and low calorie. They are also sort of cheap at $15 for a thousand so I guess that’s a consideration too.

Mmmm I suppose so…a cheap alternative. I wouldn’t do it and would be a bit upset if I found out a friend was. I know they aren’t sacred until blessed but it just doesn’t sit quite right with me. I’m not sure it is the end of Christianity that this is occuring but it does seem that in Qubec there seems to be a lack of respect being shown towards the Christan faith. But who am I to judge, if they are that desprate to loose weight!!

We went to Sunday mass and went out for breakfast after. By the time I received Holy Communion, I was starving and even then they tasted pretty crummy. Why someone would consider those things snack food is beyond me!

@Cruiser yes, well, I hear some taste better than others. On Amazon you get to read the different opinions of how good or bad they are. I always liked them, personally. (;

@Aster I suppose the Nacho flavored ones might be OK! XD

I don’t see anything wrong with it. Spain is officially a Catholic country, but all the bakeries here sell those wafers, they even make big ones, and everyone eats them.

I think the general idea here, is that, without the ceremony to go with it, it’s just food and not holy or sacred in any way at all.

If someone told me not to eat wafers because they are holy, I would automatically ask them what their stance is on wine, or beef, or pork, or shellfish. More or less any food you can think of shows up in some religion or another. With bread probably being the most popular.

If some guy is outside a church, eating a big bag full while pointing and laughing, then yea, cart him off, he is sick in the head. But still fine to just eat them in my opinion.

@Cruiser ok; you just invented something. That is a heck of a great idea !!! Congrats !!

@Aster Dang and I had to put it out on the internet didn’t I?? XD

It only takes one person to have them made, though, Cruiser. Just one.

The church should run with this…..start selling Holy Snack food….little blessed stickers on the boxes…

@coffeenut Scratch and sniff labels for sure! Spearmint flavored should be a hit! :))

I wonder how you could get red and green sprinkles to adhere to them for Christmas? Edible glue? Or is that something not invented yet.

There’s nothing “holy” or whatever about them until they’re used in the communion rites. Before that, they’re just wafers just like the nilla wafers that we might have practiced with before First Communion were. I see no problem with eating something that was made to be eaten. However, breaking into the church to get more than one bite of Jesus because you’re out of chips is kinda disrespectful.

True, but it seems if they have the cross engraved into them – do they?- it could be blasphemous. No?

@Aster The ones I’ve seen are all a quartered circle, a sign much older and more basic than Christianity.

Interesting, @klutzaroo .

It’s a cracker. A nasty, tasteless cracker, but just a cracker. That’s all it is. If people put a bunch of symbology into it and get their pants in a wad over baked goods, that’s their problem.

I wold much rather have a Triscuit, thank you.

I think there’s an “emotional eating” aspect to it . If someone has the need to be eating finger foods but doesn’t want to get bloated and stuffed the wafers would suffice. For instance, if someone is watching a scary movie and wants to snack out of nervousness, they could hold just so many Triscuits. But with the wafers they could stuff their face for hours. IMO.

lol….being gluttonous with the body of Christ…

When I was a kid, I was an alter boy for three years. We ate the wafers all the time.

They were delivered in big, sealed, clear plastic bags. We had to break open the bags and pour them into these glass jars.

Us alter boys would always eat handfuls if them.

So were they good then? Or were you just hungry. Interesting story!

@Aster: They were pretty bland but tasty. We liked how they began to melt as soon as they hit your tongue.

We weren’t hungry, we were around 10 and just curious.

That’s right, here in Québec you can buy the wafers, hell they sell em right besides the chips at the video rental store. Tastes like crap though haha.
I don’t really get your discontent of the idea though. Going by that, we probably shouldn’t be drinking wine, either.

Wine has been used for thousands of years for all sorts of reasons. The wafers, however, have only been used as a holy symbol for the body of Jesus Christ. And in the Catholic Church, they have been thought to actually become His body . So those facts, combined with my Episcopal upbringing, have made me somewhat sensitive to this sort of marketing.
It’s hard to explain reverence for the supernatural. I am obviously not nearly as reverent as I would like to be and I hope to get better.

Before the wafers though, common bread was used. I don’t think marketing the wafers is meant to disrespect Catholicism, even if it might seem like that. For example, holy water is still just water, right?

i think it’s tacky…..let them buy matza.

It’s just a cracker. Without the blessing, nothing special about it, so how could it be disrespectful? No more disrespectful than eating bread, or drinking wine.

I went to church with a friend when I was a kid and it was just a poor, little, community church. They used saltines for the Host. Point being, it’s only special and holy after being consecrated, just like holy water is only water before it is blessed.

@Aster Wafers, just like those, have also been around for quite some time before Christianity latched onto them as a symbol. To think that things like crosses and unleavened bread only came into being and significance because of Christianity is to be ignorant of the past. Ever watched the beginning of “The DaVinci Code” where Tom Hanks takes “Christian” symbols and shows other examples of the same thing elsewhere that have nothing to do with Christianity? Yeah, its like that.