Bread, Wine, Milk and Honey

In the early church, at the Liturgy where new members were initiated, besides bread and wine being blessed and consecrated and given to the newly baptized, St. Hippolytus tells us that a cup of milk mixed with sweet honey would be blessed and given to the neophytes. Apparently, the symbolism was to remind the newbies of the sweetness of life in Christ, their newly-found "Promised Land" that they enjoyed because of their recent baptism.


From St. Hippolytus:

"The deacons then preent the oblation to the bishop. He gives thanks with regard to the bread, which represents the body of Christ; he gives thanks also with regard to the cup, in which the wine is mixed that represents the blood poured out for all those who believe in him. He also gives thanks with regard to the mingled milk and honey, which represents the fulfillment of the promise God made to our ancestors, a promise signified by the land flowing with milk and honey and fulfilled in the flesh of Christ which he gives us and by which believers are nourished like little children, for the sweetness of his word changes the bitterness of our hearts into gentleness. Finally he gives thanks with regard to the water for the oblation, to signify purification, so that the interior and spiritual may receive the same effect as the body. Let the bishop explain all this carefully to those who receive it."