Fractio panis is the doctoral thesis of Barry M. Craig, directed by László Simon. Fr Craig studied in Sant’ Anselmo during 1997–2002. He successfully defended his thesis there in 2008. A New Zealander by birth, he is parish priest of Mossman and Port Douglas in Australia.
This is a careful and detailed study of the fraction rite, the breaking of the bread or loaf, with due attention to the other elements of the communion rite. The rather large number of typos, due perhaps to one revision too many, do not seriously impinge on its solid scholarship. After the acknowledgments, a long table of contents, and a thirty-four page bibliography, the Introduction briefly surveys what various authors have written about the fraction, and tells us that the aim of the book is to explain the apparent change of position of the Roman fraction rite and to assess the modern restoration of the fraction. Important methodological concerns are set out. Perhaps Appendix A, on matters of language and translation, might be read along with the Introduction. (Appendix B deals with the liturgies of the Reformation.)
Chapter 1: ‘Antiquity to the Middle Ages’ looks at relevant texts in classical Greek and Latin literature, in the Hebrew Scriptures, the Septuagint, and the New Testament, in Latin and Syriac translations of scripture, in the Dead Sea Scrolls and Talmudic literature, and in Ignatius of Antioch, the Didache, and non-canonical scriptures. The chapter then continues with a discussion of the meaning of the breaking of the loaf in Christian liturgy, where it is a symbol which reveals and expresses the participants’ relationship to one another, their association in the Body of Christ. The Christian use of the expression, ‘the breaking of the loaf’, stands out strikingly from other uses. This first chapter then gathers together some material to take the story up to the seventh century and focus it on the Roman Rite.
Chapter 2: ‘Seventh to Eleventh Centuries’ examines the ordines romani and other sources. It recognizes the importance of Ordo romanus I with its papal Mass including two comminglings, the first using a particle of the reserved sacrament and occurring during the rite of peace, the second at the pope's communion when he takes a bite from a particle and drops the remainder into the chalice. It examines the ordines which show us the Roman Rite being adopted and adapted by the Franks, with particular attention to the commingling. Some of the Frankish documents do not indicate a commingling, and others have a commingling like the second papal commingling. But the adaptation which won out was a commingling like the first papal commingling, not however using the reserved sacrament but a particle from the host which had just been consecrated. This way of doing things resulted in a kind of premature fraction, a fraction for commingling preceding the main fraction for distributing. The fraction for distributing still survived, but the fraction for commingling caught the attention of the commentators.
Chapter 3: ‘Twelfth to Sixteenth Centuries’ contains an informative excursus on the physical qualities of the bread. It looks at different versions of the Roman Rite which was now a hybrid of Roman and Frankish usages even in Rome itself. It notes the appearance of the rubric telling the priest to consume all of the broken host. It is interesting that, as late as the Avignon papacy, the pope shared the broken host with the archdeacon and subdeacon, long after the broken host was no longer shared elsewhere. The chapter ends with a description of the communion rite in the Missal of 1570, and emphasizes that the ancient fractio panis, the breaking of the loaf for distribution, had disappeared, leaving the Roman Rite with a fraction for commingling but no distribution of the broken host. Of course the chapter takes note of the infrequency of the communion of the faithful.
Chapter 4: ‘Vatican II and the Fractio panis’ takes us into the twentieth century and traces the way in which some of the big names in liturgical studies called for a reform of the communion rite. The International Liturgical Congress held in Sainte-Odile in 1952 suggested that the priest consume only half of ‘his’ host, and break the other half into smaller pieces to be put with the small hosts and distributed first. The chapter then studies the process which led to Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 50, and the Declaratio which simply noted that the fraction of the host and the Pax should be better ordered.
Chapter 5: ‘Implementing Sacrosanctum Concilium’ begins with the establishment in 1964 of the Consilium ad exsequendum Constitutionem de sacra Liturgia and studies the work which led to the Ordo Missae of 1969 and the Missale romanum of 1970. It brings out the importance of the rite of concelebration and the rite of communion under both species, both of which appeared in 1965. The concelebration rite included the possibility of a real fraction for distributing. The chapter examines the different editions of the modern Ordo Missae, pointing out that since 1969 the fraction for distributing is a constitutive element of the Mass, and that the commingling occurs after it. But in spite of this official recovery of a fraction for distributing, there are many instances of practice lagging behind the legislation, including a survival of the practice of not sharing the broken host, and the practice of doing a minimal fraction and the commingling before the beginning of the Agnus Dei.
The Conclusion summarizes the book, and makes good suggestions about how the Ordo Missae might be revised to make its meaning more obvious.
Fractio panis is a work which combines richness of detail with a strong grasp of the important issues. It reminds us of the complexity which lurks beneath our generalizations about history, and it should spark reactions from the scholars who specialize in one or other period of history or type of liturgical source.
