The Catholic bulletin. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1911-1995, 1916-12-09

serves ana IOr all mankind. NOR DO
we fail to beseech Him to bestOw
upon us the grace to regard His bene-
fits, not as our own, but as belong
ing to all His creatures, with whom
we must share our possessions should
one or many of them be in need Of
our assistance.
We ask for our daily bread; i. e.,
what is necessary for sustenance in
the particular station of life God has
seen fit to place us. We do not pray
for the superfiuities of life, nor for
luxury and abundance which only too
often corrupt the goodness of the
human heart, and make men forget
their Divine Benefactor by the excess
and easy abuse OF His benefits. And
we ask for sustenance for each day
only; for this life is, in effect, u day
only, the watching and waiting for
the eternity which is to last forever;
tomorrow will be Heaven. Besides
we wish to renew our prayer at the
beginning of every day: God will be
our Father and we shall be His chill.
as today. And since no one of us
can be sure of tomorrow in this life,
we ask only for the present days
sustenance and support. We abandon
our future into Gods hands, we en-
trust ourselves to His care with no
thought for tomorrow or the day
after. We toll and labor since it is
Gods will that we should do so; but
our toll and labor are without anxiety
and disquietude, for we realize and
always remember that it is God alone
who can bless and fructify our work
entirely upon himself and does not
trust to God to bring the harvest to
fruitful fulfillment.
But the bread for which we ask is
not only the material bread for the
nourishment of our bodies; it is prin-
cipally the spiritual bread for the
nourishment of the soul; that bread
which is above every created sub
stance, the supernatural bread, the
body of the Lord, Jesus Christ. We
pray also for Gods holy word, the
seed of life eternal; for divine grace,
necessary for the clarifying and en-
livening of our souls, and of which
the 4Sacraments are, as it were, the
sacred reservoirs and channels. But
particularly we petition God for the
Bread of the Eucharist, which pre-
serves our souls, and even prepares
fn, %1n fol Of
eternity. We beg of God to give us
this Bread each day of our lives. 1t
is true that it is always at our dis
posal. We need only have recourse
to the altar-table of the Church to
obtain this divine nourishment for
which we so assiduously pray. But
it is rather a taste and hunger for
this divine Bread that we ask for.
We beseech God to give us the grace
whereby we may truly yearn for the
food of Angels; whereby we may be
aroused from our Indifference and be
filed with holy longing for His
greatest gift to man.
The fourth petition of the Our
Father, then, is a profession of our
absolute faith in Gods Providence
over us as we'll as a prayer for what
is necessary for our nourishment both
of body and of soul. We ask only
for what we need, trusting in the
generous goodness of the Almighty
to lavish largess upon us. We pray
for the food of our souls in preference
to the food of our bodies, realizing
that our soul is deserving of infinitely
more solicitude than our perishable
body.
Our petition is a petition of humble
confidence, relying entirely upon Our
Father with all the assurance of little
children; not prescribing what or how
much He shall give us, but asking
only that we may have the susie
nance and strength that we need to
live for Him, to serve Him and love
Him. And the God who cares for the
lilies of the field, and watches over
the birds of the air will not neglect
us. We can trust in Him, sure and
certain that He will hear and answer
our daily cry; Give us this day our
daily bread"