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Contemplative Nuns in Harare, Zimbabwe, Looking to Scale Up Production of Hosts with Boost from Catholic Charity

Credit: ACN

By Sabrine Amboka

Harare, 08 November, 2024 / 8:40 pm (ACI Africa).

With a donation from the Pontifical and charity foundation, Aid to the Church in Need (ACN) International, members of the Contemplative Nuns, the Poor Clare Sisters, serving in Zimbabwe's Catholic Archdiocese of Harare, are looking to purchase a better host-making machine, and scale up the production of hosts for Mass to meet the demand in the Zimbabwean Metropolitan See.

A Wednesday, November 6 ACN report indicates that the Poor Clare Sisters have been struggling to produce enough hosts for Holy Mass owing to poor equipment.

“Baking and stamping out the hosts for the Eucharist is a precise and time-consuming job requiring great care and delicacy of touch,” ACN says, adding that the thin Eucharistic wafers must have exactly the right consistency so that they do not break.

Recalling the challenge of the Contemplative Nuns in serving their clients, the Pontifical charity foundation says, “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, according to ACN, the Poor Clare Sisters were producing between 80,000 and 100,000 small hosts for the faithful and 6,000 big hosts for the Priests each month; but they were struggling to supply even this number, when at least twice as much was needed. 

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In the November 6 report, the Pontifical foundation says that the shortages of the hosts for Holy Mass in the Catholic Parishes of Harare Archdiocese were such that the Consecrated hosts often had to be broken in two in order for all the faithful to be able to receive Holy Communion.

The Contemplative Nuns had turned to ACN for help, expressing the urgent need for modern equipment to meet the growing demand. They said that the demand was so high given that a suffragan Diocese of Harare Metropolitan See needs to be supplied with hosts.

On receiving the financial donation, the Sisters have expressed their gratitude to ACN, saying, “We don’t know how to thank you and your benefactors for providing us with these ‘five loaves and two fishes’... so that we now have everything we need. May God bless you all and reward you many times over for your generosity.”

“We are now using the new machines, even though we are still in the process of fully mastering them,” the Contemplative Nuns say, and add, “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!”

The eight Contemplative Nuns in the Monastery in Harare Archdiocese, who are part of the over 20,000 Poor Clare Sisters spread in some 16 Federations across 70 countries are to be joined by one member, according to the ACN report. 

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The Nuns live a strict enclosed life of prayer, penance, and especially Eucharistic adoration, in which they prayerfully reflect on 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 Poor Clare Sisters in Harare, the capital of Zimbabwe, have explained to ACN, adding that they live from whatever the faithful bring and also support themselves by producing hosts, candles, and liturgical vestments. 

The November 6 ACN report indicates that the Contemplative Nuns in Harare are also “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.”

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