The Recovering Choir Director

Article 83 of the General Instruction deals with the Fraction Rite and the music that should be sung during it. What is noteworthy is what isn’t said about the rite and what the article deems as standard practice for the Agnus Dei (”Lamb of God”).

The Fraction

83. The priest breaks the Eucharistic Bread, assisted, if the case calls for it, by the deacon or a concelebrant. Christ’s gesture of breaking bread at the Last Supper, which gave the entire Eucharistic Action its name in apostolic times, signifies that the many faithful are made one body (1 Corinthians 10:17) by receiving Communion from the one Bread of Life which is Christ, who died and rose for the salvation of the world. The fraction or breaking of bread is begun after the sign of peace and is carried out with proper reverence, though it should not be unnecessarily prolonged, nor should it be accorded undue importance. This rite is reserved to the priest and the deacon.

The priest breaks the Bread and puts a piece of the host into the chalice to signify the unity of the Body and Blood of the Lord in the work of salvation, namely, of the living and glorious Body of Jesus Christ. The supplication Agnus Dei, is, as a rule, sung by the choir or cantor with the congregation responding; or it is, at least, recited aloud. This invocation accompanies the fraction and, for this reason, may be repeated as many times as necessary until the rite has reached its conclusion, the last time ending with the words dona nobis pacem (grant us peace).

Interesting—the Instruction says nothing about the fractioning of the Precious Blood. (It happens here at Sunday Mass, usually at the hands of the laity. Sometimes the fractioning of the Body takes place at the hands of the laity as well.) Would it not make sense would be to pour the wine into the chalices at the Offertory? Or even to use wafers instead of home-baked loaves, as we do here?

And another thing—tradition has shown us on paper and in practice that the Agnus Dei has been a threefold invocation (two “Have mercy on us” and one “Grant us peace”). Why, oh why do we have to use novelty bread that will crumble more readily than a wafer, and then make it 6″ diameter, 1/3″ thick so you’ll have to use more than three invocations of Agnus Dei, or even tropes?

(By the way, a few members of the choir have baked homemade Communion bread, and the final result of their recipes are wafers. So don’t say it can’t be done at home, because it can. It’s just impractical given the volume required.)

To this reader, the Instruction merely confirms that the most practical way to perform the Fraction Rite has been handed down to us from tradition. If only we heeded it…