Host baking machines for the Poor Clares

Eight Poor Clare Sisters live in their convent in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, and another young woman is hoping to join them. They live a strict enclosed life of prayer, penance, and especially Eucharistic adoration, in which they include all the needs and concerns of the entire world, never leaving the enclosure except in case of necessity and imitating Christ in their life of profound poverty. “We entrust ourselves totally to Divine Providence,” the sisters explain. They live from whatever the faithful bring and also support themselves by producing hosts, candles, and liturgical garments. These are tasks entirely suited to their contemplative lifestyle since they can be performed in prayerful silence. At the same time, they are performing a valuable service for the local Church, since the hosts especially are needed in large numbers for the celebration of the Eucharist – the “source and summit” of the life of the Church.

Baking and stamping out the hosts for the Eucharist is a precise and time-consuming job requiring great care and delicacy of touch. The thin Eucharistic wafers must have exactly the right consistency so that they do not break. Nowadays, technical equipment simplifies many stages of the process, but the sisters in Harare had been using defective equipment, thereby making the work more painstaking and laborious, while the demand has only increased. On average, the sisters were producing between 80,000 and 100,000 small hosts for the faithful and 6,000 larger hosts for the priests each month, but they were struggling to supply even this number, when at least twice as much was needed. And the shortages in the parishes of the archdiocese were such that the hosts often had to be broken in two in order for all the faithful to be able to receive Communion.

And so the Poor Clares had turned to ACN for help, given the urgent need for modern equipment to meet the growing demand, especially now that another diocese also needs to be supplied with hosts.

Thanks, as always, to the unfailing generosity of our benefactors, we were able to provide the $24,780 needed for the new equipment. The machines have since arrived safely, sparking great joy among the sisters.

They have written with gratitude: “We don’t know how to thank you and your benefactors for providing us with these ‘five loaves and two fishes’ (Jn 6) so that we now have everything we need. May God bless you all and reward you many times over for your generosity. As you can see from the photos, we are now using the new machines, even though we are still in the process of fully mastering them. The quality of our products is greatly appreciated by all those who are supporting us by purchasing them. We are praying for you and are immensely grateful to you!”