GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD

Jesus teaches us this petition, because it glorifies our Father by acknowledging how good he is, beyond all goodness. The Father who gives us life cannot but give us the nourishment life requires - all appropriate goods and blessings, both material and spiritual. The presence of world hunger calls Christians to exercise responsibility and justice for the poor, to share with love our spiritual and material goods. This petition also addresses the spiritual famine of the world, and the Christian is to proclaim the good news to the poor. 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. The Eucharist is our daily bread. The power belonging to this divine food members of him, we may become what we receive... This also is our daily bread: readings we hear its day in church and the hymns we hear and sing. All these are necessities for our pilgrimage.