Benedict XVI will not visit the Benedictine Abbey of St. Gertrud, but
preparations for his trip are nevertheless in full swing, with the nuns
baking thousands of communion wafers to be blessed by the pope at
Masses during his September tour.
In a small room at the back of
the cloister, nestled on the edge of a forest south of Berlin, Sister
Theresa pulls a lever that squirts liquid dough — a simple mixture of
flour and water — onto one of a dozen hot irons.
These press out sheets
of thin, light wafer that are cut into dozens of rounds to be weighed,
packaged and delivered to Roman Catholic churches in the capital and
east of Germany.
"We are very happy that our communion wafers from
our bakery will be offered at the Eucharist celebration," Sister
Theresa, 62, told The Associated Press.
The pope visits Germany on
Sept. 22-25, arriving in Berlin and traveling through the
former-communist east before wrapping up in the southwester diocese of
Freiburg.
The order of 35,000 wafers for the Holy Mass, to be
celebrated outside of the massive cathedral in the eastern city of
Erfurt, was called in several weeks ago.
Sister Theresa, assisted by
Sister Placida and another woman from the village, has the wafers
prepared and ready to be picked up by the postal workers for delivery.
"The wafers are already packed and will be put in the mail at the start of the month," Sister Theresa said.
Since
1938, the nuns of St. Getrud have been providing hosts to eastern
Germany's Catholics — as well as some Lutheran communities.
Twelve
sheets of the wafer can be baked in a span of two minutes.
They are
left in the open to absorb a bit of moisture overnight to prevent them
from cracking when the small, circular wafers are stamped out with a
drill-press.
Although the order has not yet come in for the Mass
to be celebrated in Berlin's Olympic stadium, which can hold up to
70,000 people, Sister Theresa did not seem concerned.
"We could make the 70,000 possibly needed for the celebration at the Olympic stadium in a single day of baking," she said.