522 "GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD"

AVE MARIA

YOUCAT Lesson 522

YOUCAT the catechism for Catholic youth

522  What does it mean to say, “Give us this day our daily bread”?

The petition about our daily bread makes us people who await everything from the goodness of our heavenly Father, including the material and spiritual goods that are vitally necessary.  No Christian can pronounce this petition without thinking about his real responsibility for those in the world who lack the basic necessities of life.  [2828-2834, 2861]

 

Members of the United States Navy serve the homeless at Dorothy's Soup Kitchen, Salinas, California. …..522

“There is hunger for ordinary bread, but there is also hunger for love, kindness, and mutual respect—and that is the great poverty from which people today suffer so much.”  Blessed Teresa of Calcutta (1910-1997)

[2828-2834, 2861]

"GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD"

2828 "Give us": The trust of children who look to their Father for everything is beautiful. "He makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust."( Matthew 5:45.)¹¹³ He gives to all the living "their food in due season."( Psalm 104:27.)¹¹⁴ Jesus teaches us this petition, because it glorifies our Father by acknowledging how good he is, beyond all goodness. –Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition

2829 "Give us" also expresses the covenant. We are his and he is ours, for our sake. But this "us" also recognizes him as the Father of all men and we pray to him for them all, in solidarity with their needs and sufferings. –CCC

2830 "Our bread": The Father who gives us life cannot not but give us the nourishment life requires - all appropriate goods and blessings, both material and spiritual. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus insists on the filial trust that cooperates with our Father's providence.( Compare Matthew 6:25-34.)¹¹⁵ He is not inviting us to idleness,( Compare 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13. )¹¹⁶ but wants to relieve us from nagging worry and preoccupation. Such is the filial surrender of the children of God:  --CCC

  

To those who seek the kingdom of God and his righteousness, he has promised to give all else besides. Since everything indeed belongs to God, he who possesses God wants for nothing, if he himself is not found wanting before God.( St. Cyprian, De Dom. orat. 21:Patrologia Latina 4,534A.)¹¹⁷ –CCC

  

2831 But the presence of those who hunger because they lack bread opens up another profound meaning of this petition. The drama of hunger in the world calls Christians who pray sincerely to exercise responsibility toward their brethren, both in their personal behavior and in their solidarity with the human family. This petition of the Lord's Prayer cannot be isolated from the parables of the poor man Lazarus and of the Last Judgment.( Compare Luke 16:19-31; Matthew 25:31-46.)¹¹⁸ –CCC

 2832 As leaven in the dough, the newness of the kingdom should make the earth "rise" by the Spirit of Christ.( Compare Apostolicam Actuositatem 5.)¹¹⁹ This must be shown by the establishment of justice in personal and social, economic and international relations, without ever forgetting that there are no just structures without people who want to be just.  –CCC

 2833 "Our" bread is the "one" loaf for the "many." In the Beatitudes "poverty" is the virtue of sharing: it calls us to communicate and share both material and spiritual goods, not by coercion but out of love, so that the abundance of some may remedy the needs of others.( Compare 2 Corinthians 8:1-15.)¹²⁰ –CCC

 2834 "Pray and work."( Compare St. Benedict, Regula, 20,48.)¹²¹ "Pray as if everything depended on God and work as if everything depended on you."( Attributed to St. Ignatius Loyola, compare Joseph de Guibert, SJ, The Jesuits: Their Spiritual Doctrine and Practice, (Chicago: Loyola University Press, 1964), 148, n. 55.)¹²² Even when we have done our work, the food we receive is still a gift from our Father; it is good to ask him for it and to thank him, as Christian families do when saying grace at meals.  --CCC

IN BRIEF

2861 In the fourth petition, by saying "give us," we express in communion with our brethren our filial trust in our heavenly Father. "Our daily bread" refers to the earthly nourishment necessary to everyone for subsistence, and also to the Bread of Life: the Word of God and the Body of Christ. It is received in God's "today," as the indispensable, (super-) essential nourishment of the feast of the coming Kingdom anticipated in the Eucharist.  --CCC