Bread is one of the oldest forms of food. Except in South and Southeast Asia, where peoples use rice and noodles, and in some native cultures, bread can be found all over the world.
It may be flat, round, or flat. It can be leavened or unleavened. It may be made from the wide varieties of wheat and barley, rye, corn, and even rice.
Bread can be cooked on an oven, over a flat pan, over fire, or even in a pot.
Bread can be used on its own or can be used for dipping or even sandwiching food.
In some cultures, bread will be always on the table, no matter the time of day – for breakfast, dinner, or just alone to fill an empty tummy.
Bread could be baked just of the hands off the cook, or could be dignified with markings or even seals with particular significance – from identifying the baker to religious ideas.
The earliest evidence of bread making is as old as over 14,000 thousand years ago from a site in today’s Jordan. Ten thousand years ago, during the Neolithic age and the spread of agriculture, grains became the mainstay of bread making.
No one knows what “Manna” was. In fact, in the original language, Hebrew, three different words are used to describe “Manna” – Bread, baked goods, or just plain milled grain.
In many civilizations, bread was more than food, and carried a social and religious significance.
In ancient Rome, both families of the newlyweds ate bread together during the wedding ceremony.
In Jewish understanding, “Manna” turned common people into the Jewish people. But long before “Manna” arrived, for the Jewish nation bread became a sign of freedom. Freedom from slavery and freedom from the past.
In Jewish thinking, Manna, the Bread from Angels changed, and still changes people. Even today, at the center of the Shabbat ceremonies there is challah bread.
And this of particular importance of what Jesus meant when He offered himself as the Bread of Heaven, the Holy Bread that transforms ordinary people into people of the Kingdom.
Of course, somewhere, and somehow, in time theologians and other influencers began to define how this happen, and to add their own peculiar ceremonies and ideas.
But if anything can be said about what Jesus meant when He defined himself as the Bread of Heaven it is that bread is more than a symbol or a just a token. Jesus said, “This is my Body.”
As you well know, the church has long been divided by words that should had brought us together than setting us apart.
During the Reformation and through the subsequent years, many have tried to place meaning to our Lord’s words – “This is what Jesus meant when He said, ‘I am the Bread of Heaven’”. Which, to say the least is very presumptuous, but nevertheless, in the name of tradition, of “this is the ways it has been always done”, or in the name of “Because we say so”, churches still keep doing.
During the 1500s, when the Reformation was raging and people and churches were divided, the Bishops asked Queen Elizabeth I to rule over the meaning of our Lord’s words.
And this what she said, “Whatever Jesus meant when He said this is my Body, this is my Blood, this is what I believe.”
In other words, faith is a step beyond knowledge and understanding. St Paul put it this way, “Now we see things imperfectly, like puzzling reflections in a mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God now knows me completely.”
Today, as we gather to receive the Bread of Heaven, the true Bread of Angels, take the time to think not so much of what you are doing but, instead, enjoy and relish our Lord’s words -- “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”
And in your heart say, “Amen. Be it unto me according to Thy word.”
Fr. Gustavo
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