Another well-known Biblical scholar, Scott Hahn, described "Our Daily Bread" in terms of the family of God, the saints, and the Church whose Eucharistic communion brings her into the Kingdom of heaven - See https://www.catholiceducation.org/en/culture/catholic-contributions/give-us-this-day-our-daily-bread.html.
In his magisterial analysis, Pope Benedict XVI wrote similarly on the same topic, stating "the fact is that the Fathers of the Church were practically unanimous in understanding the fourth petition of the Our Father (Lord's Prayer) as a Eucharistic petition."
In Communio’s Spring 2017 issue, much of the theological discussion continues a series dedicated to the “Our Father,” focusing on the petition “Give us this day our daily bread.” God faithfully sustains his creation at all times, but calls man, who is made to live “on every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4; cf. Dt 8:3) to a more radical share in his own life through the gift of the Incarnate Word, the “living bread come down from heaven” (Jn 6:51; cf. Ex 16:4). Nourished on the fruit of Christ’s sacrifice, human freedom comes most fully to itself. By the reception of this gift, daily life is inwardly enriched with the Son’s own eternal offering of gratitude to the Father.
In “Effects of the Eucharistic Sacrifice: A Brief Commentary on Trent’s De Missae Sacrificio, Chapter 2,” Bruce D. Marshall presents the heart of the Mass as a sacrifice acceptable to God. In conversation with St. Thomas Aquinas, Marshall examines the features of propriatory sacrifice and shows how this is epitomized by Christ’s charity on the cross. In giving his singular sacrifice to be offered anew in the Eucharist, Christ enables his Church to “cause” the immutable God to be pleased, and so to be a free participant in his saving deed. “That our action is pleasing and acceptable to God depends, in other words, wholly on God’s own will. But it is precisely our particular and contingent temporal action with which he is pleased, and which he freely accepts.”
Jan-Heiner Tück, in “Panis Angelicus—Gift of Life: On the Poetic Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Hymn ‘Sacris Solemniis,’” explores the Angelic Doctor’s poetic treatment of the Eucharist. Tück discusses how liturgical piety lives from the confession of Christ’s real and personal presence in the Eucharist, which is indeed the guiding theme of Aquinas’s hymns. In his commentary, Tück dwells on the sacrificial character of the Eucharist, which, by its daily transmission in the Church, gathers the faithful into Christ’s own pro-existence. “He who solemnly celebrates the representation of this sacrifice is called upon to allow his own life to be determined by the self-offering of Christ.”
In “What Bread Is This? What Bread This Is!,” Eckhard Nordhofen directs us to the Greek original of the adjective rendered as “daily” in the “Our Father,” signaling that this neologism, “epioúsion,” is more richly evocative than its common translation. In exploring the root-meaning of this unique word, Nordhofen brings to light how the bread of Christ’s prayer alludes to the manna of Exodus and the Jewish Passover meal, looks ahead to the eucharistic memorial that will be established through the Paschal mystery, and stands as the pledge (and presence) of the Father’s coming kingdom. “Jesus already established the super-essential bread as bread for the future, as the new medium of God.”
Jacques Servais, in “Asking God for What We Do: On an Aphorism of Ignatius of Loyola,” opens the prayer for daily bread into a reflection on how radical trust in God is the very source and safeguard of human freedom. Taking bearings from a saying commonly attributed to St. Ignatius, Servais shows how authentic Christian “indifference,” the readiness to entrust oneself to God’s will and to carry out this will without reserve, overcomes the parallel temptations of sheer passivity and sheer self-reliance. “The spirit of initiative, which is indispensable, is now founded on a living faith in God; and perfect surrender to the divine will now demands that we make use of all the means at our disposal in order to realize it.” In this way, dependence on God for all our necessities, the very dependence we confess in asking the Father for our daily bread, liberates the Christian for fruitful action in the world.
In “Between a Criticism of Evolution and Atheism: A View on the Philosophy of Thomas Nagel,” Engelbert Recktenwald explains why only a God who creates in infinite wisdom and freedom can guarantee the relative independence of the finite world. Recktenwald comments on a prominent philosopher of science, Thomas Nagel, who holds that Darwinistic naturalism undermines the very reason and intelligibility on which it depends. Despite this critique, Nagel remains an atheist in the name of fidelity to the integrity of nature. “According to him, Darwinism and theism resemble one another in that they both push intelligibility out of the world, one by positing the contingency of mutation and the other by taking recourse to divine freedom.” Far from casting doubt on the created order, Recktenwald responds, the structure of the cosmos is intrinsically intelligible only because it is personally bestowed through the divine Logos.
David L. Schindler, in “On Trivializing the Lives of ‘Ordinary People’ in Liberal Societies,” makes a case for the centrality of God and the good to all conscious and free human action, including everyday participation in economic life. Francesca Murphy claims in a recent article (“Is Liberalism a Heresy? Why Liberalism and a Market Economy Are Based on Christianity,” First Things [June/July 2016]) that the liberal market economy, on its own terms, adequately captures the drama of personal existence and serves as a precursor of the mutual giving-and-receiving that is the life of grace. Responding to the substance of this claim, Schindler argues on the contrary that this drama is generated first by the implicit awareness of God’s presence at the origin of human intelligence and action, a presence which the supposed neutrality of liberal institutions formally disregards. “What liberal societies do not—and as a matter of ‘official’-public principle cannot—take into account is the interior order of the market’s specific activities and ends as these (implicitly) concern man’s ultimate good.” Schindler argues, then, “that there is in fact much more drama” going on in the activity of “ordinary people” in the liberal market than Murphy recognizes.
In Why We Need . . ., Philip Gonzales presents an essay on Erich Przywara. Gonzales argues that the mysteries of the Incarnation and divinization stand at the center of Przywara’s classic interpretation of the analogia entis. The Ignatian principle of serving God’s ever-greater majesty animates and forms Przywara’s metaphysics, so that, “at its beating core, the analogia entis is expressive of an analogia caritatisbetween man and God.” If human existence is characterized by obedient response to God, then it is ordered from its very roots to participation in Christ’s Paschal ascent to the Father through loving surrender on behalf of the world.
In Retrieving the Tradition, we publish Erich Przywara’s “Eucharist and Labor,” in which he takes up the question of how the Eucharist transforms and guides the Church in her daily task. The grace imparted in the Mass commends the communicant to a definite work for the sake of the world in the present day. “Christ unites himself with the soul in order that his countenance might shine in it anew. Now he desires, through the labor of those souls who are renewed in him, to also light up the world, from its depth, with the brilliant radiance of his features.” In the end, Christian labor can only be vivifying for others in the measure that it receives its form from the Crucified.
Retrieving the Tradition also features two selections from Our Fatherby Alexander Schmemann. In this reflection, Schmemann concentrates on how the prayer is directed in each petition towards ever-deeper communion with God, as evidenced by the request for bread today. Given to support man in his natural task of praising and becoming likened to God, daily bread is a sign of God’s pervasive, unbroken generosity. “‘(You) give us’: this means that the ultimate source of all this for us is God himself, his life, his concern for us; in whatever form or from whomever we may receive the gift, all is from him.” The promise hiddenly contained in bread, living and everlasting intimacy with the divine source of our being, is fulfilled in the daily sacrifice of the Mass.
Finally, in Notes & Comments Edwin Block explores an often-overlooked work in “Hans Urs von Balthasar’s The Grain of Wheat: Reflections on Spirit and Truth.” Elaborating on Balthasar’s sources and motifs, Block brings forward the deep Christian wisdom to be found in this collection of aphorisms, “a perennial source of enrichment for one’s theological understanding, one’s spiritual life, and one’s prayerful practice.”
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church:Jan-Heiner Tück, in “Panis Angelicus—Gift of Life: On the Poetic Theology of St. Thomas Aquinas’s Hymn ‘Sacris Solemniis,’” explores the Angelic Doctor’s poetic treatment of the Eucharist. Tück discusses how liturgical piety lives from the confession of Christ’s real and personal presence in the Eucharist, which is indeed the guiding theme of Aquinas’s hymns. In his commentary, Tück dwells on the sacrificial character of the Eucharist, which, by its daily transmission in the Church, gathers the faithful into Christ’s own pro-existence. “He who solemnly celebrates the representation of this sacrifice is called upon to allow his own life to be determined by the self-offering of Christ.”
In “What Bread Is This? What Bread This Is!,” Eckhard Nordhofen directs us to the Greek original of the adjective rendered as “daily” in the “Our Father,” signaling that this neologism, “epioúsion,” is more richly evocative than its common translation. In exploring the root-meaning of this unique word, Nordhofen brings to light how the bread of Christ’s prayer alludes to the manna of Exodus and the Jewish Passover meal, looks ahead to the eucharistic memorial that will be established through the Paschal mystery, and stands as the pledge (and presence) of the Father’s coming kingdom. “Jesus already established the super-essential bread as bread for the future, as the new medium of God.”
Jacques Servais, in “Asking God for What We Do: On an Aphorism of Ignatius of Loyola,” opens the prayer for daily bread into a reflection on how radical trust in God is the very source and safeguard of human freedom. Taking bearings from a saying commonly attributed to St. Ignatius, Servais shows how authentic Christian “indifference,” the readiness to entrust oneself to God’s will and to carry out this will without reserve, overcomes the parallel temptations of sheer passivity and sheer self-reliance. “The spirit of initiative, which is indispensable, is now founded on a living faith in God; and perfect surrender to the divine will now demands that we make use of all the means at our disposal in order to realize it.” In this way, dependence on God for all our necessities, the very dependence we confess in asking the Father for our daily bread, liberates the Christian for fruitful action in the world.
In “Between a Criticism of Evolution and Atheism: A View on the Philosophy of Thomas Nagel,” Engelbert Recktenwald explains why only a God who creates in infinite wisdom and freedom can guarantee the relative independence of the finite world. Recktenwald comments on a prominent philosopher of science, Thomas Nagel, who holds that Darwinistic naturalism undermines the very reason and intelligibility on which it depends. Despite this critique, Nagel remains an atheist in the name of fidelity to the integrity of nature. “According to him, Darwinism and theism resemble one another in that they both push intelligibility out of the world, one by positing the contingency of mutation and the other by taking recourse to divine freedom.” Far from casting doubt on the created order, Recktenwald responds, the structure of the cosmos is intrinsically intelligible only because it is personally bestowed through the divine Logos.
David L. Schindler, in “On Trivializing the Lives of ‘Ordinary People’ in Liberal Societies,” makes a case for the centrality of God and the good to all conscious and free human action, including everyday participation in economic life. Francesca Murphy claims in a recent article (“Is Liberalism a Heresy? Why Liberalism and a Market Economy Are Based on Christianity,” First Things [June/July 2016]) that the liberal market economy, on its own terms, adequately captures the drama of personal existence and serves as a precursor of the mutual giving-and-receiving that is the life of grace. Responding to the substance of this claim, Schindler argues on the contrary that this drama is generated first by the implicit awareness of God’s presence at the origin of human intelligence and action, a presence which the supposed neutrality of liberal institutions formally disregards. “What liberal societies do not—and as a matter of ‘official’-public principle cannot—take into account is the interior order of the market’s specific activities and ends as these (implicitly) concern man’s ultimate good.” Schindler argues, then, “that there is in fact much more drama” going on in the activity of “ordinary people” in the liberal market than Murphy recognizes.
In Why We Need . . ., Philip Gonzales presents an essay on Erich Przywara. Gonzales argues that the mysteries of the Incarnation and divinization stand at the center of Przywara’s classic interpretation of the analogia entis. The Ignatian principle of serving God’s ever-greater majesty animates and forms Przywara’s metaphysics, so that, “at its beating core, the analogia entis is expressive of an analogia caritatisbetween man and God.” If human existence is characterized by obedient response to God, then it is ordered from its very roots to participation in Christ’s Paschal ascent to the Father through loving surrender on behalf of the world.
In Retrieving the Tradition, we publish Erich Przywara’s “Eucharist and Labor,” in which he takes up the question of how the Eucharist transforms and guides the Church in her daily task. The grace imparted in the Mass commends the communicant to a definite work for the sake of the world in the present day. “Christ unites himself with the soul in order that his countenance might shine in it anew. Now he desires, through the labor of those souls who are renewed in him, to also light up the world, from its depth, with the brilliant radiance of his features.” In the end, Christian labor can only be vivifying for others in the measure that it receives its form from the Crucified.
Retrieving the Tradition also features two selections from Our Fatherby Alexander Schmemann. In this reflection, Schmemann concentrates on how the prayer is directed in each petition towards ever-deeper communion with God, as evidenced by the request for bread today. Given to support man in his natural task of praising and becoming likened to God, daily bread is a sign of God’s pervasive, unbroken generosity. “‘(You) give us’: this means that the ultimate source of all this for us is God himself, his life, his concern for us; in whatever form or from whomever we may receive the gift, all is from him.” The promise hiddenly contained in bread, living and everlasting intimacy with the divine source of our being, is fulfilled in the daily sacrifice of the Mass.
Finally, in Notes & Comments Edwin Block explores an often-overlooked work in “Hans Urs von Balthasar’s The Grain of Wheat: Reflections on Spirit and Truth.” Elaborating on Balthasar’s sources and motifs, Block brings forward the deep Christian wisdom to be found in this collection of aphorisms, “a perennial source of enrichment for one’s theological understanding, one’s spiritual life, and one’s prayerful practice.”
The first series of petitions carries us towards him for his own sake: thy name, thy kingdom, thy will! It is characteristic of love to think first of the one whom we love. In none of the three petitions do we mention ourselves; the burning desire, even anguish, of the beloved Son for his Father's glory seizes us: (Luke 12:50) "hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done...." These three supplications were already answered in the saving sacrifice of Christ, but they are henceforth directed in hope toward their final fulfillment, for God is not yet all in all (1 Cor 15:28). The second series of petitions unfolds with the same movement as certain Eucharistic epicleses: as an offering up of our expectations, that draws down upon itself the eyes of the Father of mercies. They go up from us and concern us from this very moment, in our present world: "give us . . . forgive us . . . lead us not ... deliver us...." the fourth and fifth petitions concern our life as such - to be fed and to be healed of sin; the last two concern our battle for the victory of life - that battle of prayer.
2828 "Give us": the trust of children who look to their Father for everything is beautiful. "He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust."(Mt. 5:45) He gives to all the living "their food in due season."(PS 104:27) Jesus teaches us this petition, because it glorifies our Father by acknowledging how good he is, beyond all goodness.
2829 "Give us" also expresses the covenant. We are his and he is ours, for our sake. But this "us" also recognizes him as the Father of all men and we pray to him for them all, in solidarity with their needs and sufferings.
2830 "Our bread": the Father who gives us life cannot not but give us the nourishment life requires - all appropriate goods and blessings, both material and spiritual. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus insists on the filial trust that cooperates with our Father's providence.(Cf. Mt 6:25-34). He is not inviting us to idleness,(2 Thess 3:6-13) but wants to relieve us from nagging worry and preoccupation. Such is the filial surrender of the children of God:
To those who seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, he has promised to give all else besides. Since everything indeed belongs to God, he who possesses God wants for nothing, if he himself is not found wanting before God. (St. Cyprian, De Dom. orat. 21 PL 4, 534A.)
2831 But the presence of those who hunger because they lack bread opens up another profound meaning of this petition. the drama of hunger in the world calls Christians who pray sincerely to exercise responsibility toward their brethren, both in their personal behavior and in their solidarity with the human family. This petition of the Lord's Prayer cannot be isolated from the parables of the poor man Lazarus and of the Last Judgment. (Lk 16:19-31)
2832 As leaven in the dough, the newness of the kingdom should make the earth "rise" by the Spirit of Christ. This must be shown by the establishment of justice in personal and social, economic and international relations, without ever forgetting that there are no just structures without people who want to be just.
2833 "Our" bread is the "one" loaf for the "many." In the Beatitudes "poverty" is the virtue of sharing: it calls us to communicate and share both material and spiritual goods, not by coercion but out of love, so that the abundance of some may remedy the needs of others. (2 Cor 8:1-15)
2834 "Pray and work."(St. Benedict Regula, 20, 48.) "Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you."(Attributed to St. Ignatius Loyola, cf. Joseph de Guibert, SJ, The
Jesuits: Their Spiritual Doctrine and Practice, (Chicago: Loyola
University Press, 1964), 148, n. 55.) Even when we have done our work, the food we receive is still a gift from our Father; it is good to ask him for it with thanksgiving, as Christian families do when saying grace at meals.
Jesuits: Their Spiritual Doctrine and Practice, (Chicago: Loyola
University Press, 1964), 148, n. 55.) Even when we have done our work, the food we receive is still a gift from our Father; it is good to ask him for it with thanksgiving, as Christian families do when saying grace at meals.
2835 This petition, with the responsibility it involves, also applies to another hunger from which men are perishing: "Man does not live by bread alone, but . . . by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God,"(Deut 8:3) that is, by the Word he speaks and the Spirit he breathes forth. Christians must make every effort "to proclaim the good news to the poor." There is a famine on earth, "not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the LORD."(Am 8:11) For this reason the specifically Christian sense of this fourth petition concerns the Bread of Life: the Word of God accepted in faith, the Body of Christ received in the Eucharist. (Jn 6: 26-58)
2836 "This day" is also an expression of trust taught us by the Lord,(Mt 6:34) which we would never have presumed to invent. Since it refers above all to his Word and to the Body of his Son, this "today" is not only that of our mortal time, but also the "today" of God.
If you receive the bread each day, each day is today for you. If Christ is yours today, he rises for you every day. How can this be? "You are my Son, today I have begotten you." Therefore, "today" is when Christ rises.(Ps 2: 7)
2837 "Daily" (epiousios) occurs nowhere else in the New Testament. Taken in a temporal sense, this word is a pedagogical repetition of "this day,"(Ex 16: 19-21) to confirm us in trust "without reservation." Taken in the qualitative sense, it signifies what is necessary for life, and more broadly every good thing sufficient for subsistence.(1 Tim 6:8) Taken literally (epi-ousios: "super-essential"), it refers directly to the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ, the "medicine of immortality," without which we have no life within us.(St. Ignatius of Antioch, Ad Eph. 20, 2 PG 5, 661; ⇒ Jn 6:53-56.) Finally in this connection, its heavenly meaning is evident: "this day" is the Day of the Lord, the day of the feast of the kingdom, anticipated in the Eucharist that is already the foretaste of the kingdom to come. For this reason it is fitting for the Eucharistic liturgy to be celebrated each day.
The Eucharist is our daily bread. the power belonging to this divine food makes it a bond of union. Its effect is then understood as unity, so that, gathered into his Body and made members of him, we may become what we receive.... This also is our daily bread: the readings you hear each day in church and the hymns you hear and sing. All these are necessities for our pilgrimage.(St. Augustine, Sermo 57, 7: PL 38, 389.7)
The Father in heaven urges us, as children of heaven, to ask for the bread of heaven. [Christ] himself is the bread who, sown in the Virgin, raised up in the flesh, kneaded in the Passion, baked in the oven of the tomb, reserved in churches, brought to altars, furnishes the faithful each day with food from heaven.(St. Peter Chrysologus, Sermo 67 PL 52, 392; Cf. ⇒ Jn 6:51).
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