Food shortages in communist Cuba are so extensive, nuns have run out of flour to bake Communion hosts for all the Catholic churches on the island. However, after news spread of this latest shortage, donations of flour began to pour in.
The Carmelite nuns in Cuba announced that thanks to the donations of wheat flour they have received in recent days, they will again be able to make the Communion hosts to supply the island’s churches.
In a Nov. 14 statement, the Discalced Carmelite Sisters of Havana expressed their joy for having “experienced once again that the barque of the Church is the Lord who leads it.”
The Monastery of the Discalced Carmelites of St. Teresa in the Cuban capital had informed all the dioceses Nov. 2 that it could no longer produce any more hosts because it had run out of wheat flour, a product that has been in short supply for months in the island.
Just days later, Father José Luis Pueyo of the Diocese of Villa Clara told the newspaper 14ymedio that they would have to break their remaining hosts into several pieces in order to provide for the faithful.
However, on Tuesday, the nuns expressed their surprise to see that the news of no flour had gone viral, even reaching remote places.
“The impressive thing about all this is how it has moved the hearts of so many people of goodwill who, like the widow in the Gospel, have offered little or much so that the work can continue,” the nuns said in the statement published in Vida Cristiana, a Jesuit-run weekly.
“Flour has come to us from our simple townspeople, from institutions, from Miami, Puerto Rico, Spain, and also the allocation that we have from the State,” they reported.
Considering how Cubans across the island are struggling to find enough food to eat, it is indeed a miracle of God that enough flour was donated to the monastery. As one Carmelite sister put it, “the one who multiplied the loaves has shown his power with the multiplication of the flour.”