Give us this day our daily bread

"When you are in Heaven, you will feed only on God. Beatitude will be your food. But here below, you still need bread. And you are the little children of God. It is therefore right to say: 'Father, give us the bread.' Are you afraid that He will not listen to you? Oh! no! (...) But you, when you pray to the Father, you do not address a friend of the earth, but you turn to the Perfect Friend who is the Father of Heaven. Therefore, I tell you: 'Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.' Indeed, to whoever asks, it is given; who seeks, finds; to whoever knocks, the door is opened."

Evolution of the wording:

• Latin: Panem nostrum quotidiánum da nobis hódie;
• Before 1966: Give us today our daily bread (or our daily bread);
• Current: Give us this day our daily bread.

In his book The Prayer of the Our Father. A Renewed Look, Mgr Pierre-Marie Carré, questions:

"With this request begins the second part of the Our Father, the one that concerns the fundamental needs of human beings on earth. This request may seem very simple at first glance. In fact, it is particularly complex.

"[...] What does 'bread' mean? Through this image, one thinks that Jesus means all basic food for the body, varying according to continents and cultures. The request is for 'today'. Prayer is an attitude of trust in which what matters is the present moment: we should not worry about tomorrow, says Jesus (see Matthew 6:34).

The most difficult term is the one translated as 'of this day'. The Greek term used is found nowhere else and is very difficult to interpret. It can designate the bread we need, the one necessary for our existence, in a word, daily bread. Thus, from a temporal point of view, it would be the simple confirmation of the adverb 'today'. But it can also designate the 'coming' bread, the one that God will give at the eternal feast, and therefore be the announcement of food for eternal life. It can also indicate the 'superessential' bread, that is, the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ, without which we do not have Life in us."

This temporal and spiritual meaning is indeed found in the teachings of Jesus.

In the Work of Maria Valtorta

Catechesis of July 7, 1943

In the work of Maria Valtorta, this teaching is given by Jesus at the very beginning of his dictations. During this period, he deepens, for our time, the fundamentals of the Christian faith, including the Lord's Prayer: the Our Father. He takes care to bring material needs back to the spiritual level in his comments. The bread is also a spiritual bread because "man does not live by bread alone"

"Give us today our daily bread." I said today and I said bread. I never say anything useless. Today. Ask the Father for help one day at a time. It is a measure of prudence, justice, and humility.

Prudence: if you had everything all at once, you would waste a lot. You are eternal children, and capricious besides. You must not waste God's gifts. Moreover, if you had everything, you would forget God. Justice: why should you have everything all at once, when I received the Father's help one day at a time? And would it not be unjust to think it good for God to give you everything at once, which would imply, with an altogether human solicitude, that one never knows, and it is good to have everything today for fear that God gives us nothing tomorrow? Distrust, you do not think about it, is a sin. You must not distrust God. He loves you perfectly. He is the very perfect Father. Asking for everything at once hurts trust and offends the Father. Humility: to have to ask, day after day, refreshes your memory of your nothingness, your condition of the poor, and of God's All and Richness.

Bread. I said "bread" because bread is the noble food, indispensable to life. In that single word, I have included, so that you ask for them all, all the needs of your passage on earth. But just as the temperature of your spirituality varies, so does the scope of this word. "Bread-food" for those whose spirituality is embryonic to the point that it is already a lot if they know how to ask God for food to satisfy their stomach. There are those who do not ask for it, but take it violently, cursing God and their Neighbor. God looks at them with anger because they trample on the precept from which others derive: "Love your God with all your Heart, love your Neighbor as yourself." Bread-help in moral and material necessities for those who do not live only for their stomach, but who, having a more evolved spirituality, know how to live also for the mind. Bread-Religion for those, even more advanced, who put God before the satisfactions of the senses and human feelings, and who already know how to move their wings in the supernatural. Bread-spirit, bread-sacrifice for those who, having reached full maturity of the spirit, know how to live in the spirit and in truth, caring for only blood and flesh as strictly necessary for existence in mortal life, until the time comes to join God. These have now been formed on my model and are living copies of me, on whom the Father bends with an embrace of love."

On the gift of the Our Father

The giving of the Our Father to the Apostles takes place during the second Passover and in the absence of Judas who left to join his toxic relations of the Temple. Maria Valtorta's account is closer to the narrative of Luke 11:2-13 than to that of Matthew, who gathers the coherence of several teachings. Part of the teaching of the Our Father is found in Matthew 6:9-13 and another part in Matthew 7:7-11. Jesus gives the "bread" a material sense. Perhaps He wants to reassure the Apostles who had to leave everything to follow Him. In any case, Jesus also wants to reassure them about God's care for them: He will provide for their needs

"When you are in Heaven, you will feed only on God. Beatitude will be your food. But here below, you still need bread. And you are the little children of God. It is therefore right to say: 'Father, give us the bread.' Are you afraid that He will not listen to you? Oh! no! Think: suppose one of you has a friend and realizes he is out of bread to feed another friend or a relative who arrived at his house at the end of the second watch. He will go to the friend next door and say to him: 'Friend, lend me three loaves, because a guest has come to me, and I have nothing to set before him.' Can he expect to be answered from inside the house: 'Do not bother me, for the door is already shut and my children are in bed with me; I cannot get up and give you anything'? No. If he addressed a true friend and insists, he will receive what he asks for. He would even get it if he addressed a not very good friend. He would get it because of his insistence, for the one he asks this service from, not to be bothered any longer, would hurry to give him as much as he wants. But you, when you pray to the Father, you do not address a friend of the earth, but you turn to the Perfect Friend who is the Father of Heaven. Therefore I tell you: 'Ask and it will be given to you, seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you.' Indeed, to whoever asks, it is given; who seeks, finds; to whoever knocks, the door is opened.

Who among the children of men is given a stone if he asks his father for bread? Who is given a snake instead of a grilled fish? A father who acted thus toward his children would be a criminal. I have already said it[6] and I repeat it to encourage you to feelings of goodness and trust. Just as someone with a sound mind would not give a scorpion instead of an egg, with how much more goodness will God give you what you ask! Since He is good, while you are more or less bad. So ask humbly and filially for your bread from the Father (EMV 203.10)."

To go further

• Our Father
• Our Father who art in Heaven
• Hallowed be Thy Name
• Thy Kingdom come
• Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven
• Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us
• Lead us not into temptation
• But deliver us from evil

In the Catechism

The magisterial teaching on "Give us this day our daily bread" adds the necessity to share the "bread" with those who lack it. This aspect is taken up elsewhere in the Work of Maria Valtorta. For the rest, one finds confirmation and justification of trust in God and of the meaning, both material and spiritual, of the bread to give to all.

§ 2830 " Our bread." The Father, who gives us life, cannot but provide us with the food necessary for life, all the good things "suitable," material and spiritual. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus insists on this filial trust that cooperates with Our Father's Providence (cf. Matthew 6:25-34). He does not encourage us to passivity (cf. 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13) but wants to free us from all fostered anxiety and worry. Such is the filial abandonment of the children of God.

§ 2835 This request, and the responsibility it entails, also concerns another hunger from which men perish: "Man does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Matthew 4:4 with reference to Deuteronomy 8:3b), that is to say His Word and Spirit. Christians must mobilize all their efforts to "proclaim the Gospel to the poor." There is a hunger on earth, "not a hunger for bread nor a thirst for water, but to hear the word of the LORD" (Amos 8:11). It is why the specifically Christian meaning of this fourth petition concerns the Bread of Life: the Word of God to be homilized in faith, the Body of Christ received in the Eucharist (cf. John 6:26-58).

§ 2836 "Today" is also an expression of trust. The Lord teaches it to us (cf. Matthew 6:34; Exodus 16:19); our presumption could not have invented it. Since it is above all His Word and the Body of His Son, this "today" is not only that of our mortal time: it is the Today of God.

§ 2837 "Of this day." This word, epiousios, has no other use in the New Testament. Taken in a temporal sense, it is a pedagogical reprise of "today" (cf. Exodus 16:19-21) to confirm us in "unreserved" trust. Taken in a qualitative sense, it means what is necessary for life, and more broadly all good sufficient for subsistence (cf. 1 Timothy 6:8). Taken literally (epiousios: "super-essential"), it directly designates the Bread of Life, the Body of Christ.

Notes and references

Second part of the Bible, from the coming of Jesus Christ until the Apocalypse.