Our Daily Bread: the Source of Holiness

A few days ago I reflected on Jesus’ encounter with and words to the Samaritan woman at the well; toward the end of that event, Jesus tells the apostles that his food is to do the will of him who sent him and to finish his work. Today, the third Sunday of Lent, the gospel is the entire passage of the Samaritan woman at the well.

I have been pondering this passage more where Jesus tells his apostles what His food is, and that made me think of the Our Father prayer He teaches them. In that prayer, I think the only prayer He teaches as recorded in Scripture, He says, “Give us each day our daily bread” (Luke 11:3). In the singular prayer we have from Jesus, He does not teach us to pray for tomorrow’s bread. We only pray for the bread for today. There is no retirement account for this bread. The same was true for the manna in the wilderness; it vanished after a day, so no matter how much one gathered in a day, it would not be there for tomorrow. Each day they gathered it in a new. The one exception to that was on the Sabbath; they did not gather on that day. They would gather a double portion on Friday which would last them through Saturday.

In a similar manner, we can not store up our prayers seeking the bread of today for tomorrow. Each and every day we must pray for that bread. What is this daily bread? Certainly, Jesus wants us to rely upon Him for all our physical needs and to thank Him for all of our overflowing blessings. The more significant and life-changing bread that we pray for each day is God’s life in us; to have life and live it abundantly, we need to have a deep communion with God wherein we put on the mind of Christ and conform our wills to His. He dwells in us and we dwell in Him. For this sharing of our lives together with our Merciful Father, we need to pray each day as Jesus showed us.

Thinking about this word “daily,” I looked to see where else this word is used in the New Testament and checked it in the Greek to make sure it is the same word (καθʼ ἡμέραν). One of the places it is also used is two chapters earlier in Luke where Jesus says: “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake, he will save it. For what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses or forfeits himself? For whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, of him will the Son of man be ashamed when he comes in his glory and the glory of the Father and of the holy angels” Luke 9:23-26.

Jesus tells us to take up our cross daily. We are to pray each day for our daily bread, and we are to take up our cross daily. Is there a connection between these two, our daily bread and our daily cross? I think there is. For you and me to be willing to lose our life, to lose the world, to take up our cross, we have to be filled with God’s life. Unless we are fully alive and entirely given over into the hands of our Savior, we aren’t going to be able to give up everything. The only motivation strong enough to do such a seemingly crazy thing is that God has won over our hearts and we trust Him fully with all that we have and with all that we will need in the future. To take up our daily cross, we must have our daily bread.

Another instance of the use of “daily” is found in the other writings of Saint Luke. In the second chapter of the Acts of the Apostles when the Church is just getting off the ground, Luke uses the word “daily” (καθʼ ἡμέραν) twice in a short passage: “And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved” (Acts 2: 46-47).

With glad, generous hearts, the disciples gathered daily for their bread, and daily the number of disciples increased. Earlier, I mentioned the connection between daily bread and being able to carry one’s daily cross. Here, the daily bread is what is the impetus and source for growth in the Church. Daily bread can simply be God’s grace that He showers down upon us for strength for the day, but it is most completely the Holy Eucharist itself. Jesus Himself, the True Bread from Heaven, is the perfect daily bread. When we gladly and generously give ourselves to Him when we receive Him in the Holy Eucharist, then we are able to carry our daily cross and then we will be fruitful personally; partly because our holiness is attractive and partly because God provides the fruit, our faithful and worthy reception of the Eucharist brings others into the Church as well.

The Eucharist is the source and summit of the Christian life (Lumen Gentium #11): it is our daily bread which gives us strength to carry our daily cross and which bears much fruit, especially with the expansion and growth of the Church. As the second Eucharistic Prayer states right before the epiclesis, “Lord, you are holy indeed, the fountain of all holiness.” The fountain of grace God has established is the Eucharist; as it says in today’s gospel, it is the gift of God and the source of living water. All that we need for life and sanity, for hope and trust, for generosity and self-sacrifice, is found in the Eucharist: the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. The Eucharist is the very Love Exploding Heart of Christ which poured itself out completely for you and me, and with that heart within us, we have life and we can carry our cross and we will bear much fruit.

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