Our Daily Bread - Cardinal Bacci

Our Daily Bread

1. In the Pater Noster Jesus instructs us to ask for our daily bread – that is, for sufficient bread for today, not for tomorrow. In this way He warns us not to be too preoccupied with the future, but to trust in Providence and accept from God’s hands from day to day whatever is necessary for us. God is our Father and loves us as His children. Knowing this, why should we worry about the future?

We are in the hands of God, Who looks after all His children. Let us entrust ourselves completely to His care. This does not mean that we should indulge in any kind of fatalism, expecting everything from God and doing nothing ourselves. We cannot and should not expect unnecessary miracles. We are under an obligation to work, because work is the result of, and the punishment for, sin. It enables us to co-operate with God in His work of creation and has been ennobled and sanctified by Jesus Christ, Who chose to be “the carpenter’s son,” (Mt. 13:55) and a carpenter Himself. (Cf. Mk. 6:3) We should work, therefore, but should not worry.

When we have done everything of which we are capable, we should leave the rest to Divine Providence.

We should not desire, moreover, to accumulate riches which, as the Gospel warns us, often turn out to be thorns which choke us (Cf. Luke 8:14) and halt our progress towards God. We should desire instead the true spiritual riches, namely, divine grace and virtue. We should be prepared to expend all our energy in order to acquire these. If material wealth comes our way, however, it is not necessary to reject it. Evangelical poverty is not a command, but simply a counsel of perfection. As long as we use it well and do not become too attached to it, wealth can be an instrument of virtue and powerful means of doing good. (Cf. St. Thomas, Contra Gentiles, III, 134)

2. We can find this teaching which is contained in these words of the “Our Father” in another section of the Gospel, where Jesus tells us not to ask for riches and not to hoard goods for the future, but to pray and work from day to day for our daily needs. “Do not be anxious for your life, what you shall eat, nor yet for your body, what you shall put on… Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow, or reap, or gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feeds them… Consider how the lilies of the fields grow; they neither toil nor spin, yet I say to you that not even Solomon in all his glory was arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which flourishes today but tomorrow is thrown in the oven, how much more you, O you… you of little faith! … Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow; for tomorrow will have anxieties of its own. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” (Cf. Mt. 6:25-34)

3. When we pray to God to give us our daily bread, we should remember this beautiful sermon of Christ, which will remove all our anxiety and worldly worry. As long as we are prepared to do our work, we shall obtain our daily bread from our loving Father and shall receive in addition spiritual peace, confidence, and perfect resignation to His holy will.