The Fourth Petition: “Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread.”

The Compiler (St. Theophan the Recluse). With the fourth petition, a turn in the prayer begins: all the preceding petitions were for the inner ordering of spiritual life, which, arising under the action of the Fear of God and inspired by hope of the heavenly kingdom, travels the path of God’s commandments; now come petitions for the unavoidable connections of this life. As creatures of limited nature, we need food not for the body alone but also for the soul; as those who often fall through weakness, we need confession and forgiveness; as those surrounded by temptations and always beset by the evil enemy, we need protection and defense. We pray for all this in the following four petitions, all of which are directed toward this end: that our heavenly Father may arrange the course of the events of our life—both external and internal—in a manner favorable to spiritual life.

The bread for which we pray in the fourth petition is material bread, necessary for sustaining bodily life; alongside it, one may also understand the asking for other needs without which life is impossible, such as clothing and shelter. But since the soul too has need of spiritual nourishment to sustain spiritual life, by bread one may also understand here the spiritual food for the soul. Its food is the “Word of God,” which nourishes the soul with knowledge of divine truths and leads it into contemplation of God’s invisible treasures—the mere intellectual vision of which is nourishing and delightful—and the grace of God descending into the soul through the sacraments, filling and satisfying it. In the course of our life these sacraments are: repentance, and especially the communion of the holy Body and Blood of Christ, which the Lord Himself named the only nourishing bread that comes down from heaven and gives life to the world. It is fitting to hold all this in mind when pronouncing the words of the prayer: “Give us this day our daily bread.”

Tertullian. What a beautiful order divine wisdom gave to the petitions of the prayer—when, after the heavenly things, that is, the name of God, the kingdom of God, the will of God, it gave place to a petition for earthly needs as well, although the Lord did say: “Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matt. 6:33). Nevertheless, the words “Give us this day our daily bread” let us understand more in the spiritual sense. For Christ is our bread: He is life and the bread of life, as He Himself says: “I am the bread of life” (John 6:48); and a little earlier: “My Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world”; and then: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (Jn 6:32-33,51)—so that in the bread His body is present and received. “This is My body” (Luke 22:19), He says. And of those who eat His body and drink His blood He said that they abide in Him and He in them (John 6:56). Thus, by asking for daily bread, we pray for a continuous dwelling in Christ through communion of His body. — But even if these words are not taken in the spiritual sense, even then they will not be without spiritual edification. For the command is to ask only for bread, which alone is reckoned as necessary for the faithful; as for all the rest, it is said: “all these things the people of this world seek after” (Matt. 6:32). The same thing the Lord confirms by examples and instills by parables, when He says: “It is not right to take the bread of the children and throw it to the dogs” (Matt. 15:26). Likewise: would anyone give a stone to a son asking for bread? (Matt. 7:9)—For here it is shown what children expect from the Father. And that petitioner of the night also asked for bread alone (Luke 11:5). — The Lord wisely added: “Give us this day,” for He had already taught before: “Do not be anxious about tomorrow” (Matt. 6:34). To this He also adapted the parable about that man whose ground yielded a plentiful harvest, who, while planning to live long in safety and abundance, died that very night (Luke 12:16–20).

St. Cyprian of Carthage. Continuing the prayer, we say the following petition: “Give us this day our daily bread.” This can be understood both in the spiritual and in the simple sense, for both, by God’s gift, are equally conducive to salvation. Christ is the bread of life, and this bread belongs not to all but only to us. Just as we say “Our Father,” because God is the Father of those who know Him and believe, so also we call Christ our bread, because He is the bread of those who touch His body. We ask daily that this bread be given to us, so that we, who abide in Christ and receive the Eucharist daily as the food of salvation, should not, if for some grave sin we are excluded from communion and deprived of the heavenly bread, be separated from the body of Christ—as the Lord says for our instruction: “I am the living bread that came down from heaven; whoever eats this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give is My flesh, which I will give for the life of the world” (John 6:51). When He says that whoever eats of His bread will live forever, He thereby shows that those who touch His body and receive the Eucharist by right of communion are alive. Therefore one must fear and pray lest anyone be separated from the body of Christ by being placed under penance, and be cut off from salvation, as the Lord threatens, saying: “Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink His blood, you have no life in you” (John 6:53). That is why we pray daily that our bread be given to us, so that, abiding and living in Christ, we may not be cut off from His sanctification and from His body.

This can also be understood as follows: having renounced this present age and by the grace of spiritual faith having turned away from its riches and honors, mindful of the Lord’s instruction, who says: “Whoever does not forsake all that he has cannot be My disciple” (Luke 14:33), we ask for food and sustenance alone. One who has become a disciple of Christ, having renounced everything according to the Teacher’s word, should ask only for daily sustenance and in prayer should not extend his desires further, keeping in mind the commandment of the Lord who said: “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious about itself; sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matt. 6:34). Thus the disciple of Christ, who is forbidden to be anxious about tomorrow, rightly asks for daily food: it would be a contradiction and an inconsistency to seek provision for a long time in this age, when we pray for the swift coming of God’s kingdom. The blessed Apostle, teaching and strengthening the steadfastness of our hope and faith, makes us the following reminder: “We brought nothing into the world; it is clear that we can take nothing out of it either. If we have food and clothing, let us be content with that. But those who desire to be rich fall into temptation and a snare and into many senseless and harmful desires, which plunge people into ruin and destruction; for the love of money is a root of all evils, and in their eagerness for it some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows” (1 Tim. 6:7–10). By this he teaches that riches are not only to be despised but that they are also dangerous: in them is the root of cunning evils that deceive the blindness of the human mind with hidden treachery. That is why God rebukes the foolish rich man who was thinking about worldly prosperity and boasting of an extraordinary abundance of fruits. “Fool,” He says to him, “this night they will demand your soul from you; and the things you have prepared—whose will they be?” (Luke 12:20). The fool rejoiced over his profit on the very night on which he was to die; he who had so little time left to live was thinking about the abundance of his crops.

On the contrary, the Lord teaches that one is truly perfect who, having sold all his possessions and distributed them to the poor, lays up for himself treasure in heaven; one who, by the Lord’s word, being able to follow Him and imitate the glory of the Lord’s suffering, is not held back in his readiness and willingness by any snares of household management but, having sent his possessions ahead to God, free and unencumbered, goes there himself (Matt. 19:21). Thus let everyone learn to pray in order to prepare themselves for the same; from the law of prayer let everyone understand what prayer ought to be! Yet for the righteous there can never be a lack of daily food, as Scripture says: “The Lord will not let the soul of the righteous go hungry” (Prov. 10:3). And again: “I was young and now I am old, and I have not seen the righteous forsaken or his children begging bread” (Ps. 36:25). The Lord promises the same thing, saying: “Do not be anxious, saying: ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the people of this world seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matt. 6:31–33). He promises that all things will be added to those who seek the kingdom and righteousness of God: for all things are God’s; therefore, one who has God will be in want of nothing, provided only that he himself does not turn away from God. So, when Daniel was cast into the den of lions by the king’s command, a meal was prepared for him by divine Providence, and the man of God was fed amid beasts that were hungry yet spared him (Dan. 14:30–39). So Elijah was fed during his flight: pursued, he received sustenance in the desert from ravens that served him, from birds that brought him food.

St. Gregory of Nyssa. But someone might object: is it possible to attain the same purity as that of the incorporeal powers for those whose lot it is to live in the flesh, when the soul, owing to bodily needs, is plunged into the darkness of cares? Therefore, it seems to me, as if removing this seeming impossibility, the Lord in the subsequent words resolves what appears difficult in the task at hand. For in these words, in the command to ask for daily bread, there is offered to us, I think, the teaching that contentment with little and moderation according to the law of dispassion is equal to having need of nothing by nature. An angel does not ask God in prayer for the gift of bread, because he is endowed with a nature that has no need of anything of the kind; but a human being is commanded to ask, because what is being emptied must necessarily be filled. The constitution of human life is swift and transient; it requires renewal in place of what has departed. Therefore, one who in serving nature is not drawn beyond necessity by vain cares is not much inferior to the angelic rank in his way of life, imitating in his contentment with a little the angels who are in need of nothing. Therefore, the command is to seek only what is sufficient to maintain bodily existence, saying to God: give us bread—that is, give not amusements, not wealth, not fine-colored purple robes, not golden ornaments, not the gleam of gems, not silver vessels, not vast estates, not military command, not rule over cities and peoples, not herds of horses and oxen and great numbers of other cattle, not an abundance of slaves, not fame in the marketplace, not monuments, not images, not silken fabrics, not the pleasures of music, nor anything else of this kind, by which the soul is drawn away from divine and more worthy concern—but give bread.

Do you see this breadth of wisdom? How many teachings are contained in this brief saying? By the word “bread” the Lord, as it were, calls out to those who listen: “Stop exhausting yourselves, O people, with desires for vanity! Stop multiplying, to your own harm, the causes of toil! Your natural debt is not great: you are obligated to provide your flesh with food—a small and not difficult matter, if you keep need in view. Why do you multiply your obligations? Why do you lay a yoke upon yourself, bearing so many debts, acquiring silver, digging up gold, seeking transparent stones? Is it to delight with all this the perpetual tax-gatherer—your belly—which needs only bread to satisfy what the body requires?” But you set out for India, suffer hardship on foreign seas, embark on voyages lasting years, in order to delight your food with goods brought from there, without noticing that the sense of sweetness has its limit at the palate in the mouth, and that what is pleasing to the eye and fragrant and agreeable to the taste gives the sense a fleeting and momentary pleasure. Beyond the palate, the gullet cannot distinguish anything among what is placed in the throat, since all is changed by nature equally into corruption. Do you see the end of the culinary art? Do you see the consequences of culinary contrivances? Ask for bread for life’s need—in this regard nature has made you a debtor to the body. But what has been invented beyond this by the softness of the luxurious belongs among the tares that have been sown alongside. The sowing of the master of the house is wheat, and from wheat bread is made; luxury is tares—they were sown alongside the wheat by the enemy. But people, having ceased to serve nature with what is necessary, are, as Scripture somewhere says (Mark 4:7), pressed down by care for the vain and remain undeveloped, because the soul continually occupies itself with these vanities. Limit yourself to what is necessary. Let the satisfaction of need with what you have be the boundary of your concern for life.

If Eve’s counselor should also enter into conversation with you about what is fair to the eye and pleasant to the taste, and alongside bread you begin to seek such-and-such food prepared with such-and-such seasonings, and then as a result of this you extend your desire beyond necessary bounds, you will see how the serpent thereafter imperceptibly creeps toward covetousness. For, having moved from necessary food to delicacies, you will move also to what is pleasing to the eye; you will seek bright vessels, handsome servants, silver couches, soft beds, transparent coverings sprinkled with gold, thrones, tripods, baths, cups, horns, coolers, ladles, basins, lamps, censers. And through this the lust of covetousness enters in and seeks after such things; but so that there may be no shortage in procuring them, revenues for acquiring what is required are needed. Therefore, others must be in grief, those who live alongside must shed tears, many must be made to suffer, losing their property, so that through their tears this person’s table may be splendid. And when the serpent has coiled himself around these things and filled his belly with what was desired, then in consequence of this, after satiation, the person is drawn more and more into the madness of licentiousness—and this is the most extreme of human evils.

Therefore, that nothing of the kind may happen, limit your prayer to the asking of this provision—bread—seeking food seasoned for you by nature itself. And this seasoning is a good conscience, which, in the right use of bread, makes it sweeter than anything else. But if you wish to delight even the sensation of the throat, let scarcity be your seasoning; let satiety not be added to satiety; let the impulse to take food not be blunted by drunkenness; but let the pouring of sweat, according to the commandment, precede the eating of it. “By toil and sweat you shall eat bread” (Gen. 3:19). Do you see what the first seasoning of food is, according to Scripture? It is enough for you to occupy your mind only with this need—or better to say, to bind the soul with cares for bread only up to this point. But say to the One who brings “bread from the earth” (Ps. 103:14), to the One who feeds the ravens (Ps. 146:9), who “gives food to all flesh” (Ps. 135:25), who opens His hand and satisfies “every living thing according to His good pleasure” (Ps. 144:16): “From You is my life; from You too let the means of life come. You ‘give’ bread, that is, grant me to have food from righteous labors.”

Beautiful also is the addition of the word “day.” For it is said: “Give us this day our daily bread.” This word contains another wisdom; in pronouncing it you must recognize that human life is but a single day. What each person possesses is only the present; hope for the future remains in uncertainty: “we do not know what a day will bring forth” (Prov. 27:1). Why do we torment ourselves with the uncertain, exhaust ourselves with anxieties about the future? It is said: “Sufficient for the day is its own trouble” (Matt. 6:34), where “trouble” means suffering. Why do we take thought for “the morrow”? Therefore the Lord, by commanding us to say “day,” forbids concern for “the morrow,” as if suggesting to us by this word: “He who gave you the day will also give what is needed for the day. He who commands the sun to rise (Matt. 5:45); He who dissolves the darkness of night; He who shows you the ray of light; He who turns the heavens so that the luminary stands over the earth; He who gives you this and much more—does He have need of your assistance in order to supply your flesh with what is necessary? What care for their own life does the nature of irrational creatures bring from themselves? What fields do the ravens have, what storehouses do the eagles have? Is not the one supplier of life for all—God’s will, by which all things are sustained? The ox, or the ass, or some other irrational creature, without being taught, has by nature a kind of wisdom and manages the present well; but about what will come afterward, they have no care at all.”

Do we really need advisors to understand this brevity and single-day character of fleshly life? Are we not taught by what happens to others? How do we not come to our senses through our own life? What good was the great provision to that rich man who deceived himself with unrealizable hopes, tore down and built, gathered and lived in luxury, who locked up in granaries what would have been enough for many years, in the vanity of his hopes? Did not one night expose all this dreamlike hope as some vain dream about something worthless? Bodily life is limited to the present alone, but the life offered by hope is the possession of the soul. Yet human folly errs in the use of both: thinking to prolong bodily life by hopes, and spending the life of the soul in the pleasures of the present. And so the soul, occupied with the visible, by necessity becomes a stranger to true and genuine hope—resting its hope on what is unstable, it does not grasp this, and what it hoped for, it does not have.

Therefore, let us learn from the present counsel what we should ask for today and what hereafter. Bread is today’s need, while the kingdom is the hoped-for blessedness. In speaking of bread, Scripture understands by this a bodily need. If we ask for this, it will be clear to the mind of one praying that his concern is for a single day. But if we ask for any of the goods of the soul, it is clear that the petition has in view what is always abiding and without end, toward which the Lord commands those who pray to look above all else, as the more important thing, which also satisfies the first need: “Ask,” He says, “for the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matt. 6:33).

St. Cyril of Jerusalem. “Give us this day our daily bread.” Ordinary bread is not “substantial,” but this holy bread—the body and blood of the Lord—is substantial, that is, it acts upon the very substance of the soul. This bread is imparted to your whole being, for the benefit of soul and body. And the word “day” is used in the sense of “daily,” as Paul also said: “while it can still be called ‘today’” (Heb. 3:13).

St. John Chrysostom. What is “daily bread”? The bread for each day. Since Christ said “Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” and He was speaking with people clothed in flesh who are subject to the necessary laws of nature and cannot have the dispassion of angels, He therefore, though commanding us to fulfill the commandments just as the angels fulfill them, still condescends to the weakness of nature, saying, as it were: I require from you a life of equal strictness with the angels, yet not requiring dispassion, since your nature does not permit that, having a necessary need for food. See, however, how even in bodily things there is much that is spiritual! The Savior commanded us to pray not for riches, not for pleasures, not for costly garments, not for anything else of the kind, but only for bread, and that bread for each day, so that we should not be anxious about tomorrow—which is why He added “daily bread,” that is, for each day. Even with this word He was not satisfied, but then added another: “Give us this day,” so that we should not torment ourselves with anxiety about the coming day. Indeed, if you do not know whether you will see tomorrow, why trouble yourself with anxiety about it? This the Savior commanded also further on in His preaching: “Do not be anxious,” He says, “about tomorrow” (Matt. 6:34). He wants us always to be girded and winged by faith, and not to yield to nature any more than is required of us by necessary need.

Since He mentioned the earth, and beings that have come from it and live on it and are clothed with an earthly body require corresponding food, He therefore necessarily added: “Give us this day our daily bread.” He commanded us to ask for daily bread—not for gluttony, but for nourishment that restores what is spent in the body and wards off death from hunger; not for luxurious tables, not for varied dishes, products of cooks and inventions of bakers, not for fine wines and all the rest of the kind that pleases the tongue but burdens the stomach, darkens the mind, helps the body to rebel against the soul, and makes this horse ungovernable for its rider. The commandment does not teach us to ask for this, but for “daily bread”—that is, what is converted into the substance of the body and is able to sustain it. Moreover, even this we are commanded to ask for not for a great number of years, but for as much as we need for the present day. “Do not be anxious,” said the Lord, “about tomorrow” (Matt. 6:34). And why should one be anxious about tomorrow who may not even see that day—who undertakes labor yet does not reap its fruit? Trust in God, “who gives food to all flesh” (Ps. 135:25). He who gave you a body, breathed in a soul, made you a rational being, and prepared all good things for you before He created you—how will He disregard you who have been created, “for He commands His sun to rise over evil and good and sends rain on righteous and unrighteous” (Matt. 5:45)? Therefore, trusting in Him, ask for food only for the present day, and leave anxiety for tomorrow to Him, as the blessed David also says: “Cast your care upon the Lord, and He will sustain you” (Ps. 54:23).

St. Cassian, understanding by “bread” the Lord Jesus Christ, and His most pure body with His life-giving blood, says: “Our bread—that is, the substantial bread, or, as another Evangelist has it, the daily bread—give us this day.” The first word indicates its essential dignity, by which it surpasses all substances and exceeds all creatures in its exalted holiness, while the second expresses its natural use and benefit. For when it is said “daily,” this shows that without it we cannot continue the spiritual life for a single day; and when it is said “this day,” this shows that it must be received every day and that yesterday’s partaking of it is insufficient, if in like manner it is not given to us again today. Since there is no day on which the heart of our inner person does not need to be strengthened by the reception and partaking of this “bread,” such a daily need of what is due compels us at all times to pour out prayer for it. However, the word “day” can also be taken in relation to the present life—that is: “Grant us this bread for as long as we are in this present age, for we know that even in the Future Life it will be given by You to those who have merited it; but we ask that it be granted to us still ‘today,’ for whoever is not counted worthy to receive it in the present life will not be able to partake of it in the Future Life either.”

Blessed Augustine, in his treatise on the Lord’s Sermon on the Mount, says that “bread” can have three meanings—it can signify material bread along with everything else necessary for life, and the sacrament of the body of Christ, which we receive each day (as was the practice then), and the spiritual food of which the Lord said: “Do not labor for the food that perishes, but for the food that endures to eternal life” (John 6:27). And in another place: “My food is to do the will of the One who sent Me and to complete His work” (John 4:34). Of these three meanings he sometimes discusses one in particular, sometimes another, but always has all three in view.

“The daily bread is to be understood here in the sense of spiritual bread, that is, divine commandments, in which one should meditate and which one should fulfill in deed every day. For it was these that the Lord meant when He said: ‘Do not labor for the food that perishes.’ It is called daily bread because our temporal life is lived amid a succession of days, of which one passes and another comes. And the work of each day should be the fulfillment of the commandments. Since the disposition of our spirit sometimes rises upward and sometimes falls down—that is, sometimes it turns toward the spiritual and sometimes toward the fleshly, just as the body sometimes is satisfied with food and sometimes feels hunger—it needs this spiritual food every day, by which it is strengthened and lifts itself up again each time it falls. Just as our body in this life, before the future life that is not subject to change, is sustained by food when it feels exhaustion: so also the spirit, since on account of temporal passions it suffers depletion in its striving toward God, must be strengthened daily by the food of divine commandments. — And the phrase ‘Give us this day’ means ‘while it can still be called today’” (Heb. 3:13), the same as in the present temporal life. For after this life, in the future life, we shall be filled forever with spiritual food, and it will no longer be called daily bread. Then there will be no longer this flow of time in which days succeed days and produce daily-ness. Therefore, in the same sense in which it is said: “If today you hear His voice” (Ps. 94:7)—which “today” the Apostle in the Epistle to the Hebrews interprets as “while it can still be called today”—in that sense must we take also “Give us this day.” — But if anyone wishes to take “bread” here in the sense of necessary bodily food, or in the sense of the sacrament of the Lord’s body, let him already take it together in all three meanings—that is, both as the daily bread necessary for the body, and as the visible sacramental bread, and as the invisible intellectual bread of the Word of God.

We may also understand simply that we pour out this prayer about our daily sustenance, that we may have it in abundance, or if not in abundance, at least that we may not lack it. “Substantial”—“daily”—He said in the sense of “in this life,” that is, “while it can still be called today” (Heb. 3:13). We rise daily, we are hungry daily, we are satisfied daily. And we pray that our heavenly Father may grant us bread for every day. — Why did He not say: “and covering”? We need only this: sustenance—food and drink, and covering—clothing and shelter. The Apostle forbids desiring more than this, when he says: “We brought nothing into the world; it is clear that we can take nothing out of it either. If we have food and clothing, let us be content with that” (1 Tim. 6:7–8). Since these too belong to our necessary need, it is not inappropriate to understand these things also when we say: “Give us this day our daily bread.” And there is no reason to be surprised if, naming bread alone, we understand also all other necessary provisions—as Joseph, when he invited his brothers, said: “These men will eat bread with me at noon” (Gen. 43:16). Surely they ate only bread at that table? But by bread all the rest was also meant. So too, when we pray for our daily bread, we ask also for everything necessary for our flesh on earth. — By bread one may also understand divine communion, saying as it were: grant us divine communion every day, as our daily bread. Believers know what they receive, and it is well for them to receive this daily bread, so necessary in this life. But since not all prove themselves always worthy of it, they pray that it may be granted to them always to remain good—that is, faithful to the faith and blameless in life. This is what they desire, this is what they ask! For if they do not remain such, they will be excluded from that daily bread. What, then, under this understanding of the word “bread,” will be the meaning of “Give us this day our daily bread”? Grant us to live in such a way that we are never excluded from Your altar. — And the Word of God, which is announced to you daily and in a certain sense is broken for you, is daily bread. Minds hunger for it as the belly hungers for material bread. Thus we ask for it too in the Lord’s Prayer. In this way, by daily bread is understood everything necessary for soul and body in this present life.

St. Maximus the Confessor, having mentioned in passing at the end of his interpretation of the previous petition that by “bread” is meant the bread that came down from heaven and gives life to the world (John 6:33), continues: “By the word ‘day,’ as I think, the present age is signified. Or, to interpret this place in the prayer more clearly, one might say: our bread, which You prepared in the beginning for the immortality of human nature, give us ‘today’—in the present mortal life—so that the tasting of the bread of life and knowledge may overcome the death of sin, that bread of whose communion the transgression of the divine commandment by the first human deprived us. For had he been filled with this divine food, he would not have been taken captive by the death of sin.”

However, one who prays to receive this substantial bread does not receive it all whole as it is, but only as much as the receiver himself is able to receive. For the Bread of life, as the Lover of mankind, though He gives Himself to all who ask, does not give equally to all: to those who have performed great deeds He gives more, and to those who have performed lesser deeds He gives less—that is, He gives to each according as his spiritual worth is able to receive.

To such an understanding of the present phrase of the prayer I was led by the Savior Himself, who commands His disciples to have no concern at all about sensory food, saying to them: “Do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat and what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on” (Matt. 6:25), “because all these things the people of this world seek after” (Luke 12:30), but “seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you” (Matt. 6:33). How then can He teach in the prayer not to seek what He Himself previously commanded? It is clear that in the prayer He did not command asking for what He also did not command seeking in His commandment, for in prayer we must ask for what we are also commanded to seek by commandment. But what He does not permit us to seek—it is unlawful to pray for that either. If the Savior commanded us to seek one thing only—the kingdom of God and righteousness—then He urged those pursuing divine gifts to ask for the same in prayer as well, so that, through this prayer, by confirming the grace of what is sought by nature, He might unite and identify through a relative union the will of those asking with the desire of the Giver of grace.

If the prayer commands us to ask also for that daily bread by which our present life is naturally sustained, this is so that we do not overstep the bounds of prayer by embracing whole stretches of years in our thoughts, nor forget that we are mortal and have a (present) life like a passing shadow—but rather, unburdened by excessive care, we ask in prayer also for bread for the day. And let us show that we, wisely in the manner of Christ, are turning our (earthly) life into a meditation on death, by our own will anticipating nature and, before death arrives, cutting away from the soul all concern for the body, so that it does not cling to what is corruptible and does not pervert—through its attraction to matter—the natural use of its aspiration toward God, by accustoming itself to the greed that strips away the riches of the divine good things.

Let us therefore avoid, as far as possible, love of material things, and wash from the eyes of our mind, as one washes away dust, even the very attachment to them; let us be content with what sustains our life, not with what brings it pleasure. Let us pray to God, as we have been taught, that our soul may not fall into slavery and not come under the yoke of visible things for the sake of the body. Then it will be clear that we eat in order to live, and do not live in order to eat—since the former is proper to a rational nature and the latter to an irrational one. Let us be strict guardians of this prayer, showing by our very deeds that we firmly hold to the one and only life—life in the Spirit—and employ our present life to acquire it. Let us prove in practice that for the sake of spiritual life we merely endure this [frail life], sustaining it with bread alone and preserving it, as far as possible, in a healthy state—not so that we might simply live, but that we might live for God.

Blessed Theophylact. The Lord teaches us to ask only for “daily” bread—that is, what is useful for our existence and for sustaining life—nothing superfluous, but only what is necessary.

“Daily” denotes the bread that is sufficient to keep our nature in strength. The word “day” removes anxiety about tomorrow. — The Body of Christ is also daily bread, and it is for this that we should pray, that we may receive it without condemnation.

Symeon of Thessalonica. Before this we asked for heavenly things; but being mortal and needing bread to sustain life, we ask for it as well, as human beings, knowing that it too is in Your right hand, Our Father, and that You alone are lacking in nothing, while we are lacking in everything. However, in asking for bread, we do not ask for too much—only as much as is needed “for the day”: for we have been taught not to be anxious about tomorrow, since You, Father, are our Provider today, and so You will be tomorrow and always. — And further—in praying for daily bread, we pray also for the living heavenly bread, the most holy body of the living Word, whoever does not eat of which will not live. He is our daily bread, as one who strengthens and illumines soul and body. Whoever does not eat of it has no life in him, and whoever eats of it “will live forever” (Jn 6:43,58).

St. Tikhon of Zadonsk. Daily bread, according to St. John Chrysostom’s interpretation, means what belongs to the day. This refers not only to bread but to everything necessary for this temporal life—drink, clothing, rest, shelter, and the like, as some commentators explain. We do not ask for wealth, but for what is needed to sustain this life. We are not commanded to pray for money, or for luxury, or for costly clothing, or for anything of that kind—but only for bread, and for daily bread, so that we should not be anxious about tomorrow—says St. Chrysostom. It follows that a Christian ought not to be anxious about wealth, costly clothing, grand houses, fine food, and the like. For a Christian must always be ready for the Lord to call him, and when that happens, he will be compelled to leave all of this behind. The Lord calls each person to himself through death. He wants us, says St. John Chrysostom, to be always ready and to be content with what our nature requires. When we pray “give us bread,” we confess that we are poor, needy, and destitute, and therefore must ask everything of God, and whatever we have, must ascribe to His goodness—as the Psalmist sings: “The eyes of all look to You in hope, and You give them their food in due season; You open Your hand and satisfy every living thing according to Your good pleasure” (Ps. 144:15–16). When we say “give us our bread,” we show that we are asking not only for our own nourishment but for others as well, out of Christian love. For Christian love requires that we care not only for ourselves but also for our neighbors. It is well known that God, being generous, gives temporal blessings not only to Christians but also to those who do not know Him. Yet Christians must ask of Him with full faith, as children ask of a father, and in this way show that all they have that is necessary for life is God’s gift, and so, receiving His beneficence, give thanks to the Benefactor.