The Lord's Table permitted no such substitutes. If without wax candles the Mass lacked "decency," without wheat and wine a priest was reduced to performing the "misa seca," or "dry Mass," which stopped short at the point of consecration. Yet sacramental supplies were delivered to Florida as erratically as rations. Once in the late 17th century none arrived for three years (Perez, [1646?]b; Ojeda, 1687). To bridge the gap between the fluctuating supplies of religious necessities from royal alms and the steady demand for them in the Florida doctrinas, the friars appealed in emergencies to the generosity of private persons, hoping to rely in the long run on the productivity of Indians. It was in the interest of all Catholics to make the colony self-sufficient in religious essentials. (Bushnell SS)