What does He mean by “bread” when He says, “Give us this day our daily (or essential, or tomorrow’s) bread” (Matt. 6:11)?

In brief, the word “bread” refers to daily nourishment, or to the Eucharist, or to God’s word (the Holy Bible), or to the Lord Christ Himself.

First: daily nourishment. The believer ought to maintain the health of his body as well as that of his soul. St. Augustine says, “Give us eternal things, give us things temporal. You have promised a kingdom, deny us not the means of subsistence. You will give everlasting glory with Yourself hereafter, give us in this earth temporal support … This petition for daily bread is doubtless to be understood in two ways, both for the necessary supply of our bodily food and for the necessities of our spiritual support. There is a necessary supply of bodily food, for the preservation of our daily life, without which we cannot live. This is food and clothing, but the whole is understood in a part. When we ask for bread, we thereby understand all things.”²¹²

Second: the sacrament of the Eucharist. St. Augustine says in a sermon to catechumens, “Again, this is a very good sense of, ‘Give us this day our daily bread,’ your Eucharist, our daily food. For the faithful know what they receive, and good for them it is to receive that daily bread which is necessary for this time present … Therefore, Give us this day our daily bread. What is this? Let us live so, that we be not separated from Your altar.”²¹³

Third: the word of God. St. Augustine says, “Because then both good and bad receive this bread from God, do you think there is no other bread for which the children ask, of which the Lord said in the Gospel, ‘It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs?’ (Matt. 15:26). Yes, surely there is. What then is that bread? And why is it called daily? Because this is as necessary as the other; for without it we cannot live; without bread we cannot live. It is shamelessness to ask for wealth from God; it is no shamelessness to ask for daily bread. That which ministers to pride is one thing, that which ministers to life another. Nevertheless, because this bread which may be seen and handled, is given both to the good and bad; there is a daily bread, for which the children pray. That is the word of God, which is dealt out to us day by day. Our bread is daily bread; and by it live not our bodies, but our souls. It is necessary for us who are even now laborers in the vineyard,—it is our food,

211 St. Cyprian of Carthage, Treatise 4: On the Lord’s Prayer 17 (ANF 5:452).

212 St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 7.7 (NPNF I/6:282) amended.

213 St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 8.5 (NPNF I/6:285).

not our hire. For he that hires the laborer into the vineyard owes him two things; food, that he faints not, and his hire, wherewith he may rejoice. Our daily food then in this earth is the word of God, which is dealt out always in the Churches: our hire after labor is called eternal life.”²¹⁴

“Again, what I am handling before you now is ‘daily bread’; and the daily lessons which you hear in church, are daily bread, and the hymns you hear and repeat are daily bread. For all these are necessary in our state of pilgrimage.”²¹⁵

“But when this life shall have passed away, we shall neither seek that bread which hunger seeks; nor shall we have to receive the Sacrament of the Altar, because we shall be there with Christ, whose Body we do now receive; nor will those words which we are now speaking, need to be said to you, nor the sacred volume to be read, when we shall see Him who is Himself the Word of God, by whom all things were made, by whom the Angels are fed, by whom the Angels are enlightened, by whom the Angels become wise; not requiring words of circuitous discourse; but drinking in the Only Word, filled with whom they burst forth and never fail in praise. For, ‘Blessed,’ says the Psalm, ‘are they who dwell in Your house; they will be always praising You. (Ps. 84:4).”²¹⁶

Fourth: Christ Himself. St. Cyprian says, “For Christ is the bread of life; and this bread does not belong to all men, but it is ours. And according as we say, ‘Our Father,’ because He is the Father of those who understand and believe; so also we call it ‘our bread,’ because Christ is the bread of those who are in union with His body. And we ask that this bread should be given to us daily, that we who are in Christ, and daily receive the Eucharist for the food of salvation, may not, by the interposition of some heinous sin, by being prevented, as withheld and not communicating, from partaking of the heavenly bread, be separated from Christ’s body, as He Himself predicts, and warns, ‘I am the bread of life which came down from heaven. If any man eat of my bread, he shall live for ever: and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world’ (John 6:51). … And therefore we ask that our bread—that is, Christ—may be given to us daily, that we who abide and live in Christ may not depart from His sanctification and body.”²¹⁷

The scholar Tertullian says, “For Christ is our Bread; because Christ is Life, and bread is life. ‘I am, says He, the Bread of Life’; (John. 6:35) and, a little above, ‘For the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world’ (John. 6:33). Then we find , too, that His body is reckoned in bread.”²¹⁸

214 St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 6.10 (NPNF I/6:277).

215 St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 7.7 (NPNF I/6:282) amended.

216 St. Augustine of Hippo, Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament 9.6 (NPNF I/6:289) amended.

217 St. Cyprian of Carthage, Treatise 4: On the Lord’s Prayer 18 (ANF 5:452).

218 Tertullian, On Prayer 6 (ANF 3:683).

St. Augustine believes that this daily bread is to live out the Lord Christ’s resurrection; that is, to experience every day the power of His resurrection working within us.

The scholar Origen says, “The ‘true bread’ is that which nourishes the true man, the man created after the image of God (cf. Gen. 1:26f; Col. 3:9f), and through which he who is nourished by it is made to the image of Him that created him. What is more nourishing for the soul than the Word (cf. John 1:1, 14; 14:6; 17:17; Luke 11:49; 1 Cor. 1:24, 30)? And what is more precious for the mind of him that understands it than the wisdom of God? And what is in better accord with rational nature than truth?”²¹⁹

He also says, “In order, then, that our soul may not become ill through want of nourishment and that we may not die to God through hunger for the Word of the Lord (cf. Amos 8:11; Rom. 14:8), let us, while leading in obedience to the reaching of Our Saviour a better life and with greater faith, ask the Father for the living bread which is the same as the supersubstantial bread.”²²⁰

The word “daily” has been understood in two ways. In his commentary on the Lord’s Prayer, Origen explains that the word we usually translated as “daily,” epiouios , is derived from ousia , which means “essence” or “essential”;²²¹ while others believe that it is derived from epienai ,²²² which means “of the coming day.” Similarly, James Strong, in his “Greek Dictionary of the New Testament,” explains that the word is derived either from epiousa , epi , or eimi , meaning “for subsistence,” “needful,” “daily,” or “tomorrow’s.”²²³

St. Jerome says, “The Hebrew Gospel according to Matthew reads: ‘Give us this day tomorrow’s bread,’ in other words, the Bread that You will give us in Your kingdom, give us this day.”[224 ]