On the Lord's Prayer 18
Summary: 'Our daily bread' is Christ in the Eucharist, received daily; we pray not to be cut off from it by grave sin.
Latin text · CSEL 3.1:280–281
Procedente oratione postulamus et dicimus: panem nostrum cottidianum da nobis hodie. quod potest et spiritaliter et simpliciter intellegi, quia et uterque intellectus utilitate diuina proficit ad salutem. nam panis uitae Christus est et panis hic omnium non est, sed noster est. et quomodo dicimus pater noster, quia intellegentium et credentium pater est, sic et panem nostrum uocamus, quia Christus eorum qui corpus eius contingimus panis est. hunc autem panem dari nobis cottidie postulamus, ne qui in Christo sumus et eucharistiam eius cottidie ad cibum salutis accipimus intercedente aliquo grauiore delicto, dum abstenti et non communicantes a caelesti pane prohibemur, a Christi corpore separemur ipso praedicante et dicente: ego sum panis uitae qui de caelo descendi. si qui ederit de meo pane, uiuet in aeternum. panem autem quem ego dedero caro mea est pro saeculi uita. quando ergo dicit in aeternum uiuere si qui ederit de eius pane, ut manifestum est eos uiuere qui corpus eius adtingunt et eucharistiam iure communicationis accipiunt, ita contra timendum est et orandum, ne dum quis abstentus separatur a Christi corpore remaneat a salute comminante ipso et dicente: nisi ederitis carnem filii hominis et biberitis sanguinem eius, non habebitis uitam in uobis. et ideo panem nostrum id est Christum dari nobis cottidie petimus, ut qui in Christo manemus et uiuimus a sanctificatione eius et corpore non recedamus.
English · Claude translation
As the prayer proceeds, we ask and say: "Give us today our daily bread." This can be understood both spiritually and literally, because each understanding, by divine usefulness, avails for salvation. For Christ is the bread of life, and this bread is not everyone's but ours. And 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 us who touch his body. And we ask that this bread be given us daily, lest we, who are in Christ and daily receive his Eucharist as the food of salvation, should, by the intervention of some graver sin, while we are kept from communion and, not communicating, are barred from the heavenly bread, be separated from Christ's body; as he himself proclaims and says: "I am the bread of life, who came down from heaven. If anyone eats of my bread, he will live forever. And the bread that I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world." Since, then, he says that whoever eats of his bread will live forever, as it is plain that those live who touch his body and receive the Eucharist by the right of communion, so, on the contrary, we must fear and pray lest anyone, while he is kept from communion and separated from Christ's body, should remain far from salvation, as he himself threatens, saying: "Unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you will not have life in you." And therefore we ask that our bread, that is, Christ, be given us daily, so that we who abide and live in Christ may not withdraw from his sanctification and body.
About this passage
Notes
Translation notes
- The quotations are John 6:51 (with 6:35, 48) and John 6:53. Those "kept from communion" (abstenti) are under the church's penitential discipline.
Cite this passage
Cyprian, Dom. or. 18 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/cyprian-dominica-oratione/18/).
Plain text
Cyprian, Dom. or. 18 (trans. Sophia Scriptura, https://sophiascriptura.com/fathers/cyprian-dominica-oratione/18/).
Download citation:BibTeX ·RIS (Zotero, EndNote)
Whole work:BibTeX ·RIS ·Markdown text