ABSTRACT
There is a rich and complex liturgical interchange prior to the distribution of the eucharistic elements. It is called the fraction. The interchange has disappeared from the modern Catholic mass, through it is retained from the old Sarum Missal in the Anglican rite. The priest holds the wafer over the chalice of wine and breaks it into two saying: ‘We break this bread to share in the Body of Christ.’ The congregation respond with: ‘Though we are many we are one body because we all share in one bread.’ In this chapter I wish to unfold an examination of the Church as the erotic community through a reading of this interchange. For this small piece of liturgy focuses Christian thinking on the singularities of embodiment and participation. In doing that it announces something of the analogical order this book is attempting to construct.
