No substitutions: how one Catholic couple has struggled with the rules that exclude people with food allergies and celiac disease from the Lord's Table.

MY WIFE, KATHLEEN, IS CATHOLIC TO THE BONE. She loves the Eucharist with a passion I can't fathom. Yet she now worships with Episcopalians. Why? It started with allergies.

First, just a sip from the chalice would burn Kathleen's throat. Sulfite wine preservatives accounted partly for this, but sulfite-free wine also burned. Mourning, she quit receiving from the cup.

Next, a wheat allergy and celiac disease barred her from receiving the bread of life. Kathleen had observed that eating wheat and related grains bothered her. Her reactions when she did eat them were worsening. She gave up these grains completely, except at Communion. Then she tried receiving only a fragment of the host, just once a week. Even that wasn't enough. She consulted her doctor.

The doctor prescribed an emergency epinephrine injector. Kathleen carries this constantly because wheat eaten accidentally could trigger allergic shock. The doctor also diagnosed the celiac disease, a harmful reaction to gluten in wheat and related grains. Celiac has no cure, but sufferers begin healing if they avoid all gluten.

Finally Kathleen gave up receiving Communion. Immediately symptoms that had plagued her for years began to ease. But Kathleen, who for years as a catechist had prepared children for Communion, was left standing in line for a blessing. That hurt.

Church teaching requires wheat bread and grape wine for the Eucharist. Using anything else, church law says, invalidates the sacrament.

Kathleen felt torn. Should she just accept her situation? But imagining decades without receiving Eucharist felt excruciating, so she took that to prayer. Jesus, she concluded, wants her eating and drinking with his people.

Could rice bread hosts be consecrated for her, despite the rule? Many priests quietly do this. But conversations with leaders of area parishes soon ruled that out in our county.

In a never-published letter to our diocesan newspaper Kathleen wrote, "I am no longer welcome, not because of some sin but because of an auto-immune disease. I feel I have been cut off from the true vine because I can't participate in the eucharistic banquet that is at the core of being Catholic."

Eventually Kathleen moved to the nearby Episcopal parish. They believe in the Real Presence there and will consecrate rice bread and common grape juice. She considers herself a Catholic taking refuge with close relatives.

I didn't follow Kathleen, despite the pain this caused her. Though angry at the inflexibility we encountered, I still like being Catholic. I visit Kathleen's parish regularly and find it inspiring and welcoming, but I don't feel drawn to join. Yet I also understand her departure. If your family won't feed you anything you can eat, what else can you do but leave?

I have found no evidence that Christ required wheat. True, scripture abounds with wheat and wine references that infuse meaning into our worship. But the Greek word we translate as bread means bread of any type. The loaves Jesus multiplied in John 6, a key eucharistic passage, were barley bread.

Jesus affirmed his Jewish faith but challenged rules that blocked him from doing good. The Sabbath is for us, he said, not we for it.

THE FIRST 11 CHRISTIAN CENTURIES GENERATED MANY writings on the Eucharist but none requiring wheat bread. During the early centuries Christians brought bread from home for worship. Everyone preferred wheat, but other breads were commonly eaten, especially by the poor, and there's no evidence that these were shunned.

Churchwide authority first required wheat in 1439 at the Council of Florence. Catholic leaders had for several centuries been ratifying new Eucharist traditions--the altar rail and reserving the chalice for the priest alone are examples. We have since modified many of these practices. Now we have good reason to modify another.

Over the past two years, soul-searching and conversation have helped my wife and me face this disordering of our marriage. Kathleen remains fond of her new community, as do I. Yet she insists she's still Catholic and always will be. In my community, where I remain active, people still tell me they miss my wife. I tell them she misses them, too. And she does.

DAVID BELLEFEUILLE-RICE, who lives in Olympia, Washington.