Liturgy Notes - the Fraction

In the Eucharist we share each week, ‘The Fraction’ is when the priest, on our behalf, breaks the consecrated bread. The word ‘fraction’ simply means “broken”. Though of short duration, the Fraction is of immense importance. We see this by looking at the common ‘four-fold’ actions of the Eucharist across the various Christian traditions, where this simple act has its own section.

1. Taking bread and wine (the offertory)

2. Giving thanks over the bread and wine (the consecration)

3. Breaking the bread (the fraction)

4. Distributing the bread and wine (the communion)

This is why some traditions, such as the Coptic Orthodox Church, have complex rituals for the Fraction, instructing the priest in precise hand movements and breaking the bread into exactly twelve sections to represent the 12 Apostles and the 12 Tribes of Israel.

In our Anglican service, as the Bread is broken, the priest repeats this line drawn from the Gospel of John, “Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world” (John 1.29a). By our sharing in the Body of Christ we are offered salvation, grace to take away the sin – that which separates us from God – which we all, as part of the world, also share.

The term ‘fraction’ also gives us a poetic taste into some of the mystery occurring here. Fractions are often shown by two numbers, one above a line, the other below the line. We may like to imagine that the number above is the number one, representing God, the true unity and the number below is any huge number we like, the number of creatures or atoms in the entire creation; the Many (but not infinite).

The line is what divides and separates creatures, us, from the Creator, God.

Through the Incarnation Christ becomes and is birthed a person in the world; God remains as the One above the line but also becomes one of the Many, below the line. God as Christ incarnates into the fractured, into the broken, into the fraction world. He is now both One, God, and Many, human.

Being both above and below the line, the line that separates human from God, Christ can now lead us who are below the line to the One above the line, to God. Christ can take away the sin of the world, the alienation we feel, and bring us home to God Herself.

And though we are thousands of years and thousands of kilometres away from where Jesus was body and flesh in history, we who are body and flesh are now his Body, the Body of Christ. So Christ is still present to us and still leading we who are Many, back to the One. Through the breaking of bread.