‘Give us this day our daily bread’ (Mt 6:10).
Jesus invites us to naturally include the needs of our daily life in our prayer. Our daily food also comes from our heavenly Father, even if we have to work for it with the sweat of our face (cf. Gen 3:19). Ultimately, our abilities and the success of our work depend on God’s grace.
Jesus wants us to be aware of this and to turn to the Father with our requests. How much more truthful and transcendent our lives will be when we know that everything comes to us from the love of our Father, when we ask and thank Him! In this way, not only do we enter more deeply into God’s reality and live in it, but we also assume greater responsibility: how do we administer all that God gives us?
The request for daily bread is not only about bodily nourishment and everything we need for our earthly existence, because “man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). Therefore, we must also ask for the nourishment of the Word of God and the grace to understand it correctly, so that our spirit and soul may be nourished. This is all the more important because eternal life is at stake. We also ask for the heavenly food that we receive in Holy Mass: the Body and Blood of Christ, the “Bread of the Angels”.From yesterday’s meditation we should also add that our Father’s Will is the food of all who serve the Lord, the bond that gives us the deepest unity with Him and with all His own.
Thus, this simple request of the Our Father gives us access to the fullness of God, in which He makes us partakers with great joy.