To the endless list of goods missing in Cuba, hosts used in the communion of the Catholic faithful are now added.
Several priests told AFP this Sunday that they had received orders to ration the small wafers which, during mass, symbolize the body of Jesus Christ.
The host is made from a mixture of flour and waterpressed into thin discs that the priest places on the tongues of the faithful during mass.
All hosts consumed by Cuban Catholics are produced in a Carmelite monastery in Havana which, like the rest of the city and the country, has faced prolonged power cutsworsened by a five-month-long US oil blockade.
In recent weeks, as Cuba’s fuel reserves have been depleted, the blackouts began to last for more than 24 hourss consecutively, causing enormous difficulties for millions of people.
George Payanoa 35-year-old Dominican priest who celebrated Mass at the Saint convent on Sunday, said that sometimes Carmelite nuns are only about two hours of electricity a day to start the host presses.
“This means lower production and, as they told the priests and bishops, you need to ration them a little so that they reach everyone”, he explained.
Although the approximately 20 faithful present at the celebration received communion, they were already preparing for times of greater scarcity. When they left the church and found the neighborhood without electricity again, promised to keep the faith.
“People who do not receive communion can do so spiritually, but Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that”, he told AFP Mariela Shumana 70 year old pensioner.
Faced with the lack of electricity, fuel and now even flour, the Cuban crisis seems to have made it to the altar too. For many believers, spiritual communion remains — and the hope that, this time, no need to wait for a miracle of the multiplication of the loaves so that the hosts reach everyone again.
