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Chapter XXXIII

How needful it is for us that God should grant our demand in the Pater Noster: 'Give us this day our daily bread'.1

1. 'Give us this day our daily bread.' Why this 'Bread' is given us. 2. Without It we could not do God's will. 3. Our Lord asked It for us. 4. Reasons why Christ remains in the Blessed Sacrament. 5. Address to God the Father respecting It. 6. The Saint beseeches Him to protect the Blessed Sacrament from insults. 7. Humility shown by Jesus in this petition. 8. Appeal to the Father.

  1. Our good Jesus understood how difficult a thing He had promised on our behalf, for we are frail by nature and often succeed in persuading ourselves that we do not know what is the will of God. We are weak and He is merciful; thus He saw that some remedy was needed, for by no means ought we to desist from giving what He offered for us, since in this consists our highest good although it is a most difficult task for us to fulfil. For instance, if a rich man is told that he ought to moderate his table so that those who are dying of hunger may have bread to eat, he will find a thousand excuses for not understanding this better than he chooses. If you say to a scandal-monger that he is bound to love his neighbour as himself, he will lose all patience and nothing will convince him of the truth.

  2. Declare to a religious who is accustomed to liberty and self-indulgence that he ought to give a good example; that when he says, 'Thy will be done,' it is his duty to observe these words not only by tongue but by deed; that he has sworn and promised to do the will of God, and God's will is that he should perform his vows: represent to such a person that if he gives scandal, although he may not absolutely break his vows yet he infringes on them greatly — that he has taken a vow of poverty which he must in no way evade, for this is the will of God — yet you will never be able to bring such a man even to wish to do what is right. What, then, would have happened if our Lord had not done the principal part of our work for us by means of the remedy He has given us? Surely there would have been very few who would have fulfilled the promise He made in our name when He said to the Father, 'Thy will be done.' May He vouchsafe to grant that many may do so, even now!

  3. Seeing our needs, the good Jesus found a most wonderful way by which to prove His excessive love for us — in His own and in His brethren's name He made this petition: 'Give us this day our daily bread, O Lord!'2 For the love of God, daughters, let us realise the meaning of these words: our spiritual life depends on our not disregarding them.

  4. Reckon as of little value whatever you may have given to God in comparison with this rich reward. It appears to me, although I submit my opinion to a higher judgment, that though the good Jesus knew what an advantage it would be for us to yield to His Father what He had offered on our behalf, yet He recognised the obstacles to our keeping our promise that come from our human nature, its tendency to degradation, and our want of love and courage. He saw that there was need to aid and encourage us, and this, not once for all, but day by day, therefore He determined to remain among us.

This being an immense grace, He wished it to come from the hand of His eternal Father, although, They both being One, He knew that whatever He did on earth God would hold good and ratify in heaven since His will and His Father's are identical. Yet, such is the humility of the good Jesus as man, that He appeared to ask leave for this favour although He realised how His Father loved and delighted in Him. Our Lord understood that we ask far more in this petition than in the rest, because He foresaw the death to which men would put Him and the shame and insults He would suffer.

  1. O my God! what father could be found who, having given us his son, and such a son, would, after we had so ill-used him, have allowed him to remain among us to endure fresh wrongs? No such father could be found, save Thy Father, O Lord! Well didst Thou know of Whom Thou wast asking this boon. Ah! what excess of love in both the Father and the Son! I am not so amazed at the good Jesus; having already said: 'Thy will be done', for the sake of His word He was bound to accomplish it. I know that He is not like us, but as He recognised that He fulfilled His Father's will by loving us as Himself, He sought how, although at His own cost, He might do this most perfectly. But why, O eternal Father! didst Thou consent to this? How couldst Thou see Thy Son daily in such wicked hands, after Thou hadst already permitted it once? Thou didst witness how they treated Him: how couldst Thou have the heart to see Him thus affronted day by day?3 How many insults are being offered Him this very day in this most holy Sacrament! How often must His Father watch Him in the hands of His foes! What profanations are committed by the heretics!4

  2. O eternal Sovereign! How canst Thou then consent to such a request? How canst Thou permit such a thing? Yield not to His love which for the sake of fulfilling Thy will and of succouring us would lead Him to endure being hacked into a thousand pieces every day. It is for Thee to look to it, my God, since Thy Son is reckless what He suffers. Why must every good thing come to us only at His cost? How is it that He is mute and knows not how to speak for Himself, but only pleads for us? Shall no one intercede for this most meek and loving Lamb? Give me the right, Lord, to be His advocate, since Thou hast deigned to leave Him in our power and He submits His will to Thee thus utterly and gives Himself so lovingly to us.

  3. In this petition alone does Christ repeat His own words: first He prays: 'Give us our daily bread', and then He says: 'Give us it this day, O Lord'.5 He puts us in the first place when appealing to His Father, as much as to say that now, having once for all given us this gift, it is our own and He will not take it away from us until the end of the world, but will leave it for our succour every day. Let this win your hearts, my daughters, to love your Bridegroom, for though no slave in the world willingly acknowledges his bondage, yet the good Jesus seems to consider it an honour.

  4. O eternal Father, how unspeakable is this humility! What treasure will suffice to purchase Thy Son for us? How to sell Him we know—that was done for thirty pieces of silver, but no riches will enable us to buy Him. Being made one with us by that portion of His nature which He had assumed, and being Master of His own will, He reminds His Father that, since His manhood is His own, He has the right to bestow it upon us. Therefore He says: 'Our bread'; making no distinction between Himself and us, but ranking us with Himself, so that as He daily joins His prayer with ours we may obtain from God that for which we ask.

Footnotes

  1. Valladolid edition, ch. xxxv.; Escorial, ch. lvii. ↩

  2. Escorial edition, ch. lviii. Treats of the great mercy shown us by the eternal Father in allowing His Son to remain with us in the most holy Sacrament. ↩

  3. I went to say Mass at her convent [at Medina del Campo] and was given a strongly perfumed towel when I washed my fingers. I thoughtlessly took offence at it, and told the holy Mother afterwards that she should order such an abuse to be stopped in her communities, for though I thought the corporals and altar-linen ought to be scented, it did not seem right to me that towels for toilet purposes should be so. She answered me with charming grace, saying: 'Now, you must not be annoyed, for the nuns learnt this defect from me. When I remember how our Lord reproached the Pharisee who had invited Him as a guest for not showing Him more attentions, I wish everything, from the threshold of the church-door, to be saturated with orange-flower water.' I was ashamed of my hastiness and set myself to look closely at everything relating nearly or remotely to the Blessed Sacrament. For this reason, her friars and nuns have grown so careful in the matter that the altars in their churches are kept more cleanly than in any part of the world of which I know. (From a letter of Yepes to Fr. Luis de Leon. Fuente, vol. vi. 139, n. 53, 54.) ↩

  4. Escorial, ch. lix. A petition to the Father. ↩

  5. The wording of the Lord's Prayer in Spanish is: 'El pan nuestro de cada dia danosle hoy' — literally, 'Our daily bread, give us it to-day,' ↩

Chapter 34 of 43