BY SUZANNE HAUGH

Staff Writer

SNELLVILLE--Not too many miles down the road from the local Home Depot and Kroger is a place, when discovered by outsiders, that seems to be a world away. Yet the work of the Sisters of the Visitation of Holy Mary makes possible the practice of the Catholic faith’s most important moment.

It is at the Visitation Monastery of Maryfield that the cloistered sisters bake and prepare the unleavened bread consecrated during the Eucharist in churches throughout the Archdiocese of Atlanta. Their ministry of bread-making becomes tangible evidence of a highly disciplined prayer life devoted to the Blessed Sacrament.

“It means a lot to me,” says one sister who has been at the monastery for 31 years. “It’s the work of your hands; something so simple and humble as bread (in which) Christ becomes present. It teaches you a lesson that what you might think is not good enough for you is good enough for God.”

This sister prepares a batch of batter which will make 400 to 500 large hosts or about 4,500 small hosts. She pours one and a half gallons of water from recycled milk jugs into a large mixing bowl and then slowly shovels nine pounds of flour into it. Some days the mixture is made with wheat flour, but today the sister uses a combination of hard and soft white flour.

Wearing a white cotton apron to protect her long black habit, she scrapes down the bowl’s sides as the mixer combines the two ingredients, a step which takes about five minutes.

This begins the three-day process of mixing the batter, baking the batter into sheets, cutting the sheets into hosts and then packaging them. The sisters perform this work within two-hour windows each weekday morning aside from their scheduled daily prayers, Mass, reflections, meals and a 45-minute period of recreation.

Once the batter is mixed, it is refrigerated for at least a couple of hours, usually overnight, since it should be ice cold to create whiter sheets during the baking process. Opposite the mixer, looking out onto a yard and wooded area, is a table with two large appliances that resemble industrial-sized waffle makers but with smooth surfaces. One has 15 inscriptions which will be imprinted onto the large hosts. The other is blank and is used to bake sheets for the small hosts. Here the sisters will pour the cold batter onto the plate, close it and let each sheet bake for about one minute.

The sisters complete this step and their other tasks with little conversation, praying instead and occasionally watching the wildlife that lives in the wooded area outside the monastery’s windows. The gray day today is a contrast to the brightly lit workspace the sisters use. The constant chirping of birds heard through an open window accompanies the sisters’ quiet and focused activity.

“It’s beautiful work for the contemplative Religious to be doing,” says the sister who has finished mixing the batter. She now moves into an adjoining room where two other sisters use punch presses to make both the large and small hosts.

Using a hand-held press, the sister ekes out any small hosts she can from the scraps of the other two workers.

One sister uses a foot pedal to cut large hosts individually after lining up each imprinted circle by hand. The other sister operates a punch press that cuts numerous small hosts at one time.

But before the sisters can cut the hosts, each sheet, once baked, is placed between blotters and put into a humidifier overnight. Steam from the humidifier softens the sheets that, after the baking process, “are like crackers and would shatter” if they were cut.

Along the way, someone will check the cut hosts and discard any with imperfections.

Sisters at the monastery receive training in every stage of the process.

“We teach sisters each function, but some do better at one particular thing,” the sister says. To “stay steady,” sisters are usually assigned to those areas for which they are best suited.

Once the hosts are completed, the sisters pack them in bags and begin preparing monthly shipments to area parishes; a handful of parishes receive weekly shipments.

“Each time I think about the people (who will receive Communion) and the wonderful saints’ names the churches in the archdiocese have,” says one sister who has been concentrating intently on cutting the large hosts. “It’s very personal; it’s not just a business.”

For this sister, making the hosts never becomes monotonous work. Her face breaks into a smile and a childlike joy takes over her demeanor as she speaks of her vocation. She came to the Sisters of the Visitation only five and a half years ago after living many years outside of the monastery.

“To make hosts, (which will become) Our Lord, is a privilege, never a routine, never boring.” She adds that the discipline of monastic life is often misunderstood.

“People talk about monastic life as being a monotonous life ... You can’t understand it (unless you try it), and must have a vocation for it. It’s the happiest life you could ever have if you want it.”

The Blessed Sacrament is what sustains the sisters in their vocation. According to the order’s Constitution, “The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the center of the Christian religion, the heart of devotion, the soul of piety, the ineffable mystery that comprises within ourselves the deepest depth of Divine Love. The mystery in which God really gives himself and gloriously communicates his graces and favors to us.”

One sister, who entered the order in 1943, explains that while the Blessed Sacrament should be the center of every Catholic’s life, it is essential for Religious.

“I can’t understand how anyone can live the Religious life without the Blessed Sacrament. How can they do that when they give up the possibility of family life, a husband and children? You have to pray and you need grace from God. This (the Blessed Sacrament) is where you get it.”

From the work of the sisters’ hands, to the consecration of the hosts in the hands of priests, to the open hands of those receiving the Eucharist, Catholics are united at Communion time to become the Body of Christ on earth. And even though the cloistered life may seem a world away, as the sister says, “It is not dividing us or putting us at odds with the world, but (through the Blessed Sacrament) puts us in communion with it.”

PREPARING THE BREAD -- Sisters of the Visitation pour batter for Communion hosts onto bakers. After baking, the bread is placed in a humidifier overnight for slow dampening, which softens the sheets in preparation for the cutting process the following day.
Photos by Michael Alexander

FRUIT OF THE EARTH -- A large host is inspected following the cutting process. In the large baker, inscriptions can be baked onto the hosts.