Sacred Hearts Sister Ivy Yim July 19 shows some of the boxes of hosts she distributes from a small building on the grounds of St. Anthony Retreat Center in Kalihi. Behind her on the wall is a depiction of the Last Supper. (HCH photo | Patrick Downes)
By Patrick Downes Hawaii Catholic Herald
Most parishes in Hawaii get their hosts from the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts who buy them from a mainland wholesaler and distribute them from a little building at St. Anthony Retreat Center in Kalihi Valley.
Sacred Hearts Sister Ivy Yim, who does the distribution, said she has 80 customers. They include nearly all of Hawaii’s 66 parishes, some Catholic schools and retreat centers, the diocesan Office of Worship and several Protestant churches.
The orders are picked up or delivered by mail every one to three months, depending on the need.
A few parishes order from Mainland distributors such as Anthem Church Supply and Cotter Church Supplies.
Sister Ivy said that many years ago, the Sacred Hearts Sisters at St. Anthony Center used to bake all the hosts needed for local use in Hawaii.
Today St. Anthony gets its hosts from Cavanagh Company of Rhode Island, a wholesale bakery that has been producing altar breads for more than 60 years.
Cavanagh describes its communion wafers as “made of only pure wheat flour and water … without additives.”
According to Sister Ivy, St. Anthony also supplies “gluten-free” hosts it receives from Cavanaugh.
The Cavanagh Company website states that it has the approval of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops to supply altar bread with a gluten content “under 20 parts per million” — low enough to be marketed as gluten-free — which it says is “valid” for the Catholic Eucharist according to the church’s canonical requirements.
Sister Ivy said about four Hawaii parishes order gluten-free hosts.
One of them is the Cathedral Basilica of Our Lady of Peace. According to cathedral parochial vicar Father Marvin Samiano, only one parishioner requests gluten-free hosts, which he described as “thinner and whiter” than the other hosts. He said that during the Mass it is kept apart from the rest of the hosts on the altar in a pyx or host container.
According to the Vatican’s Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments June 15 letter to diocesan bishops, wine used at Mass “must be natural, from the fruit of the grape, pure and incorrupt, not mixed with other substances,” well conserved and have not soured.
“It is altogether forbidden to use wine of doubtful authenticity or provenance,” the letter said and no other drinks of any kind may be admitted “for any reason, as they do not constitute valid matter.”
Hawaii churches buy wine from a variety of sources, some from church supply outlets, some from ordinary retail stores. The cathedral buys Carlo Rossi wine by the gallon from Safeway, according to the parish’s administrative assistant Joseph Ramos.
