Best Bread Ever!

Let us consider prayer and bread – two vital items, both of which are essential for your joie de vivre and your theological ponderings. I shall endeavor now to unite them vis-à-vis Christianity’s most famous petition, the Lords’ Prayer.

Here we go: how many times have you prayed the Lords’ Prayer? Naturally, you’ve prayed it thousands of times, corporately – that is liturgically – and individually. And no doubt you have wondered why we’re asking for “our daily bread”. Or perhaps you’re that kind of person who is technical, so you’ve wondered what kind of bread we’re petitioning to receive. Is this white bread, wheat bread, Wonder Bread, sourdough bread, metaphoric bread – say, for example, lobster thermidor and good wine – or is this the precise amount of bread we need to survive? Or is this even bread at all?

Well, dear ones, when in doubt, check the original text! And since I can read enough Greek to be dangerous, let me propose something profound for all you Sacramentalists out there, including myself, of course. First, let’s look at the text itself, re-produced here in Greek and as it’s given in the 1928 Book of Common Prayer (with the words at hand bolded).

Πάτερ ἡμῶν ὁ ἐν τοῖς οὐρανοῖς•
ἁγιασθήτω τὸ ὄνομά σου•
ἐλθέτω ἡ βασιλεία σου•
γενηθήτω τὸ θέλημά σου,•
ὡς ἐν οὐρανῷ καὶ ἐπὶ τῆς γῆς•
τὸν ἄρτον ἡμῶν τὸν ἐπιούσιον δὸς ἡμῖν σήμερον•
καὶ ἄφες ἡμῖν τὰ ὀφειλήματα ἡμῶν,
ὡς καὶ ἡμεῖς ἀφίεμεν τοῖς ὀφειλέταις ἡμῶν•
καὶ μὴ εἰσενέγκῃς ἡμᾶς εἰς πειρασμόν,
ἀλλὰ ῥῦσαι ἡμᾶς ἀπὸ τοῦ πονηροῦ.

Our Father who art in heaven,
hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread,
and forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us,
and lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.

The Greek words which we translate “daily bread” (ἄρτον ἐπιούσιον) occur only in the Lords’ Prayer, and their meaning is, as you may have guessed, contested. One thing, however, is certain: this bread is more than what’s required just to get by. We’re talking about more than stomach pangs here, folks.

A literal translation of ἐπιούσιον (pronounced epi+ousian) would be something like “necessary for existence”. Taking my cue, then, from St. Jerome, this is, forgive the Latin, the panis supersubstantialis (literally, the super-essential bread). This bread is, to quote St. Ignatius of Antioch, “the medicine of immortality.”

So, brothers and sisters, if this bread is more than bread; if it’s more than really good bread, then what else could ἐπιούσιον be other than the Bread of life, the Body of Christ, of which Christ Himself has this to say:

I am the bread of life…Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, you have no life in you; he who eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up at the last day.

And if indeed the Mass is a foretaste of the heavenly and eternal banquet, which I certainly believe it is, then what else could this “bread” really be? And if we truly receive the Body of Christ at each and every Mass, then how much more joyful is our life surely to be?!?

Finally, let me leave you pondering the words of St. Peter Chrysologus, who wrote:

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 the churches, brought to the altars, furnishes the faithful each day with food from heaven.

I hope henceforth when you pray the Lords’ Prayer you’ll ponder what you’re requesting, for you’re asking for none other than the Bread of Life, Christ Jesus Himself, who will on the last day raise us up so that we should never perish but have everlasting life.

Peace be upon you all, brothers and sisters in the faith.