Introduction
This is the turning point in the Our Father. Where the first three petitions were directed to the glory of God, from now on they are concerned with our needs.
The Church’s tradition finds two levels of request for nourishment in this petition. We ask for the food we need for our souls, and the sustenance we need for our bodies.
Spiritual Nourishment
When St. Pius X issued his decree on frequent Holy Communion, he explained that frequent means daily reception of the Blessed Sacrament. He based his teaching on the comparison with the food that we daily need to sustain our bodies, and the “all but unanimous interpretation” of the Fathers of the Church. They say that “daily bread” in the Lord’s Prayer means daily Communion. The pope concludes that “the Eucharistic Bread should be our daily food.”
It is assumed that, in receiving Holy Communion, a person has sanctifying grace. The reason is obvious. No less than food for the body presumes that the body has its natural life, so the Eucharistic food for the soul presumes that the soul is supernaturally alive.
There is also another spiritual food that we pray for in this petition. That is the nourishment of truth that the human mind needs for its daily sustenance. No less than the body needs material food to remain healthy and stay alive, so the soul has to be fed daily on God’s revealed word to maintain its spiritual vigor and life.
Christ’s long discourse on the promise of the Eucharist uses the same word “Bread” to refer to both kinds of spiritual nourishment: His own living Body in the Holy Eucharist, and His revealed word in the truths of salvation.
Daily Needs of the Body
On the material side of our bodily needs, the fourth petition asks God to provide the hungry with food, the homeless with shelter, the sick and the aged with adequate care, the victims of addiction to drugs and alcohol with help to recover from indulgence and the resulting disease.
This petition applies to both impoverished and affluent societies, which often co-exist in the same country and even the same city or locality. It is no exaggeration to say that in praying “Give us this day our daily bread” we are literally begging the Lord to move the hearts of men to share with one another of the resources that He makes available for respectable human living.
It is a sad irony of the modern world in an age of unprecedented wealth; the world is going through a period of superhuman suffering. There are many reasons for this paradox. But one of them is the cold indifference to the bodily sufferings of countless millions in every region of the globe.
Good Samaritans
When Pope John Paul II wrote his apostolic exhortation on The Christian Meaning of Human Suffering, he touched on every aspect of this petition of the Our Father. We are to pray, he said, especially that God in His mercy, will inspire a legion of Good Samaritans to see the physical needs of other people and come to their selfless aid.
Following the parable of the Gospel, we could say that suffering, which is present under so many different forms in our human world, is also present in order to unleash love in the human person, that unselfish gift of one’s “I’ on behalf of other people, especially those who suffer…. The world of human suffering calls for, so to speak, another world: the world of human love; and in a certain sense owes to suffering that unselfish love which stirs in one’s heart and actions. The person who is a “neighbor” cannot indifferently pass by the suffering of another…. He must “stop,” “sympathize” just like the Samaritan in the gospel parable. The parable in itself expresses a deeply Christian truth, but one that at the same time is very universally human. It is not without reason that, also in ordinary speech any activity on behalf of the suffering and needy is called “Good Samaritan” work.
Whatever else we pray for, when we ask for our daily bread, we are asking the God of mercy to inspire countless Good Samaritans to reflect this mercy in their loving concern for the suffering of others. To pray this petition truthfully and sincerely our hearts must be free of greed and the love of even the most basic things so necessary for life. To pray this petition we must humble ourselves and have a change of heart. We must become a different person. This is so, for we naturally want a whole month’s worth of daily bread, and we believe that having many years’ worth of daily bread is even more preferable. Should we doubt this is true, we only need to ask ourselves what we would prefer: one loaf of Wonder Bread? or a whole freezer full of food?
Conclusion
We have been influenced by the materialism of our society. To think of being content with no more than what we can use today, with no regard for tomorrow, next week, or the future, is foreign to our way of thinking. We are altogether accustomed to think in terms of having what we will need for the future. Like the rest of our society, we desire to be comfortable in life with no need to worry about where our next meal will come from or whether or not we can afford to spend a buck for this or for that. Thus we all need to take to heart our Lord’s word, “Do not love the world or anything in the world,” and to pray: “Give us today our daily bread.”
Our desire to be comfortable and worry free over life’s necessities is really a yearning to enjoy a little bit of heaven on earth. Unpleasantness and hardships and suffering are so commonplace since sin corrupted God’s perfect creation that we long to escape from it all. We long for comfortable, pleasant surroundings where we are well provided for without any worries.
The world has taught us that the means to those comfortable surroundings and abundant life are hard work and financial planning. But as soon as we rely on ourselves, our jobs, our financial planning, the national economy, social security, and so forth--we are on the road to becoming worry-warts. For in this world the only thing that is certain is that everything is uncertain. Nothing is guaranteed, including our financial security for the future. What is more, we know that if anything can go wrong or fail, it will, which leaves us out on a limb.
Jesus, contrary to our manner of thinking in terms of having abundance for the future, teaches us to pray for one day’s necessities at a time. Our Father has not promised or guaranteed us abundance. On the contrary, he tells us that if we have food and clothing we should be content with these, like Jesus himself was. He had no home of his own or a pillow on which to lay his head.
Thanks be to our Father in heaven, however, who has assured us of the greatness of his love for us by providing us with a Savior from our sins and from the punishment in hell that we deserve--his Son, Jesus. Jesus redeemed us and reconciled us to him and saved us from hell by his death on the cross. Through Jesus our Father has provided us with everlasting life and salvation.
Since our Father has provided for our greatest need, our everlasting life and salvation in heaven, we should know that he will also freely give us what we need for our body and life while we are still in this world. We have no reason to worry. We need only trust in our heavenly Father, to whom we pray, “Give us today our daily bread.”
Bibliography
EBELING GERGARD, Lord’s Prayer In Today’s World (Edinburgh,1963)
BARCLAYWILLIAM, The Lords Prayer (Louisville Johnknex Press, 1998)
MIGLIORE DANIEL, Lords Prayer: Perspectives For Reclaiming Christian Prayer (Michigan William Eerdmans Publ. Co.,1993)
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