Tower Topics ~ Spring 2003

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Images from Clyde

Unleavened prayers: Altar bread sales mean survival for contemplative communities

The altar bread baked each day by the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration at Clyde, Mo., eventually becomes Eucharist, the life of the Church. But even before consecration, it is already the bread of life to 40 religious communities across the nation.

Altar bread sales help ensure that the "quiet, prayerful"
presence of contemplative religious will continue.

Since 1910, the sisters at Clyde have produced altar bread as a primary source of revenue, but in 1991, with many smaller communities facing insurmountable production problems and personnel shortages, an Altar Bread Seminar was convened at Clyde. It was there that the Clyde sisters came to an altruistic decision. They would bake the bread, cut, and then sell it at a wholesale rate to smaller contemplative communities, mostly other Benedictines, Carmelites and Poor Clares. Those smaller communities would then package and sell it in their dioceses.

But market pressures from large corporations, most notably the Cavanaugh Company, the largest distributor of altar bread in the country, continue to threaten what was once almost exclusively the ministry of women religious. Less than 30 religious communities are still baking altar bread in the U.S., down from more than 200 in the late 1960s. Sister Rita Clair Dohn, director of Clyde’s altar bread operation, estimates that today only five percent of the market belongs to women religious.

“That’s fine,” she says. “It means so many people are receiving the Eucharist, and women religious could never supply that demand. But we worry that parishes are overlooking the fact that this traditionally has been a ministry of religious communities.”

Despite the uphill climb they faced, the communities attending the Altar Bread Seminar decided they weren’t quite ready to let go of tradition. “We weren’t going to just curl up and look for other sources of income,” Sister Rita recalls. “We understood the pressures the smaller communities faced, and we knew we had to do something.” She estimates it would cost $250,000 just to get an altar bread operation off the ground, an insurmountable expense for smaller communities. The Clyde sisters have donated used equipment to help other communities get started, and chipped in with altar bread when other communities that produce their own bread, such as Santa Rita Abbey in Sonoita, Ariz., have suffered equipment failures.

Along with their decision to help each other out, the members of the Altar Bread Seminar drafted a letter to the U.S. Bishops Conference, reminding the bishops of the difficulties they face in competing with corporate suppliers, and asked them to encourage priests to purchase bread from religious communities. “We asked them if they value our contemplative life of prayer in their dioceses, to please purchase from a religious community,” Sister Rita said. The bishops responded positively and there was a subsequent increase in sales. Yet today, the competitive balance remains as fragile as a Communion wafer.

Sister Rita notes that there are built-in problems for contemplative communities who are trying to market a product.

“Our life is so hidden,” she says. “We don’t minister outside of the monastery, so there are not too many avenues to reach people and make them aware that we are here.”

Outside of a small guest house, selling altar bread production pays the bills at the small Cistercian community of Santa Rita Abbey, says Sister Rita McCarthy who heads her community’s altar bread department.

Many of her community’s customers are retired priests who buy maybe 30 hosts a week, so the sisters of Santa Rita are barely a blip on the corporate radar screen. But, as she and other sisters point out, if women religious can’t at least hold on to their sliver of the market, many dioceses in the near future could lose their contemplative presence. While many Catholics may underestimate what such a loss would mean, Sister McCarthy insists that the unleavened prayers of contemplative orders are essential.

The Church needs people of action, she says, but it also needs people to support that action with contemplative prayer. “If we weren’t doing what we’re doing they couldn’t do what they are doing, whether they know we exist or not,” she insists, “Contemplative orders are the quiet, prayerful aspect of the Church. We hold the whole Church and the entire world up to God.”

The tradition of women religious making altar bread has its roots in the pioneer days, when men were hunters and the women kept the home. When parishes were smaller and more community-centered, it was often the women of the parish who baked the altar bread and cooked the meals for the pastor.

The sisters of Clyde, with the help of a handful of dedicated employees, produce more than 2 million hosts a week. The finished product “is as thick as any unleavened bread you’ll find, with a good whole-wheat texture,” says Sister Rita. It was good enough for Pope John Paul II, who ordered 1.5 million hosts for his 1993 visit to Denver.

Sister Cathleen Marie Timberlake, who once directed Clyde’s altar bread operation but now splits her time between there and her other duties of managing the monastery’s kitchen and making handcrafted soap, discusses altar bread with an oven-fresh warmth. “This is a way for our community to be part of the ministry of the local Church from right here in our monastery,” she says. “It is exciting and satisfying.”

Getting the word out is a challenge. And as in the rest of society, large corporations have a huge advantage. But don’t expect Sister Cathleen to dwell too long on talk of market shares and competitive balance. The topic of conversation quickly returns – with her inevitable smile – to the love and spiritual sustenance of Eucharist.

“It means a great deal that we are making the bread that will become the Body of Christ,” she says.

Each day, the sisters of Clyde rise with the dawn and receive Eucharist made from their own bread. They end each day at vespers, with a prayer fro the millions of people who receive the work of their hands.

“For our contemplative life, this is our outreach,” says Sister Rita. “I think it says most clearly who we are as a community.”