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I have often pondered the meaning of the phrase “give us this day, our daily bread” in the Lord’s Prayer. What is this bread that we ask to be given to us daily? The answer came to me several years ago when I was preparing to be the lector on the 18th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B.

The first reading is from Exodus 16. In verse 4, the LORD said to Moses, “I will now rain down bread from heaven for you. Each day the people are to go out and gather their daily portion.” In verse 16, Moses tells the Israelites, “This is the bread which the LORD has given you to eat.”

The Gospel reading ends with the following from John 6:30-35. So they (the crowd) said to him, “What sign can you do, that we may see and believe in you? What can you do? Our ancestors ate manna in the desert, as it is written: ‘He gave them bread from heaven to eat.’” So Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; 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.” So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.

Further on in John:6, Jesus refers to himself several more times as bread. In verse 51 he says: “I myself am the living bread come down from heaven. I anyone eats this bread he shall live forever; the bread I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world.” To this the Jews said, “How can this man give us (his) flesh to eat?”

Jesus gives His answer at the Last Supper. From Matthew 26:26 - While they were eating, Jesus took bread, said the blessing, broke it, and giving it to his disciples said, “Take this and eat it; this is my body.”

So this daily bread that Jesus taught us to ask for from the Father is His body. And it is through the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that we are able to receive our daily bread.