comes to us charged with the messages of salvation, the offers of mercy, the ministries of God's love "To-day is yesterday return'd,-return'd Full power'd to cancel, expiate, raise, adorn, To-day well spent may be the precursor of a bright eternity; ill spent, may sink into the shadows of eternal night. 2 And if we take an enlarged view of the word, what is our whole life-time here but a day?" This thy day" (S. Luke xix. 42). So we may harmonise those two conflicting theories as to the derivation of the word, eπiúσios, of which we spoke, rendering the petition "Give us this day (and so long as it is called To-day) our daily bread." And as the manna was given every morning, and continued to be given so long as the Israelites were in the wilderness, so we may trust that God will supply us every day with spiritual and natural food, sufficient and suitable for us, till we reach our Heavenly Home. This application is also in harmony with S. Luke's rendering, τὸ καθ' ἡμέραν. The word καθημερόβιος, which is derived from κа0 μéрav, is well known to signify one who, as the Latins phrase it, "in diem vivit," "lives for the day," taking no thought for the morrow; therefore the words κaľ nμéρav here may well express the present day; and the particle Tò prefixed to it, giving a limitation of what is affirmed, gives the signification, "according to" or "agreeable to" the day, "so determining that more general petition of 'Give us sufficient bread,' to that particular portion of it which is answerable to the necessities of the day, even that which we beg it on,' " 3 or for whatever time may still remain to us, which shall be called To-day. But may we go to beg thus for bread every day? To any 1 Young's "Night Thoughts" (Night 2). 2 "Hodie, sic Manna datum" (Bengel). P earthly friend we should be ashamed to go thus frequently, clamouring for the accumulation of favour upon favour. And so we might have supposed that God would be wearied and vexed with our importunities, had not our Lord Himself taught us to come "day by day." Nay, did He not speak one of His parables (S. Luke xviii. 1-8), did He not work one of His miracles (S. Matt. xv. 21-28) especially to encourage this importunity in prayer? "Wherefore," asks one, "dost Thou say 'daily?' Art Thou willing daily to be our Food? Does it not suffice Thee, if for one day Thou dwellest in us, and tarriest with us? Why dost Thou wish to be ever with us? What have we done to Thee?" And so of temporal supplies as well: God never says, "You came yesterday," nor "You must not come to-morrow;" but "To-day if ye will hear His voice," to-day He will hear you. But is, then, all provision for the future prohibited by the wording of this petition? Is to-morrow to be left altogether out of our calculation? Are we to live literally from hand to mouth? May we give up all care for this world, idly folding our hands, and simply opening our mouth day by day, expecting God to fill it? This cannot be the meaning of our Lord's words, "Give us this day our daily bread: "take therefore no thought for the morrow;" though S. Augustine tells us that there were certain in his day who chose thus to pervert them. We know, indeed, that if to-morrow comes and finds us here, we shall be just as dependent on God's grace and providence as we are to-day; yet we need have no anxious care, if we cast all our care upon Him" Who "careth for us" (1 S. Peter v. 7); but we must be "not slothful in business (Rom. xii. 11), but make use of every means in our power which may be likely to provide our own supplies, working as 66 1 "Quare dixisti, quotidianum? Numquid vis quotidie cibus noster esse? Non sufficit Tibi si per unam diem in nobis habitas et moraris nobiscum? Quare semper vis esse nobiscum? Quid fecimus Tibi?" (S. Anselm. Opusc. spur.) if all depended on our own exertions, and yet trusting in our Father's care, as if our own exertions were unnecessary and superfluous. There is a care of diligence (ueλéтn) and a care of distrust (μépiμva); the former is needful, the latter sinful; the former enjoined, the latter forbidden. Joseph did well to lay up in the seven years of plenty for the seven years of want which were to follow; and our Lord taught His disciples to 'gather up the fragments that remained" after the multitude had eaten and were filled (S. John vi. 12). Parents are bound to "lay up for their children” (2 Cor. xii. 14), and "if any provide not for his own, and especially for those of his own house, he hath denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel” (1 Tim. v. 8). But what kind of providence (or prudence) is that which lays up only for the few years of this life, and leaves out of all its calculations the never-ending ages of eternity? 1 And while we "labour for the meat that perisheth" and “for that meat which endureth unto everlasting life" (S. John vi. 27), we may trust that God will bless and prosper our honest and earnest endeavours. The days of famine, temporal or spiritual, may come, when the words of the prophet shall be fulfilled, "The children ask bread, and no man breaketh it unto them" (Lam. iv. 4). But "faith fears not famine,” as S. Jerome says; and it will sing in the night of adversity (Job. xxxv. 10); "Although the fig-tree shall not blossom, neither shall fruit be in the vines; the labour of the olive shall fail, and the fields shall yield no meat; the flock shall be cut off from the fold, and there shall be no herd in the stalls; yet I will rejoice in the Lord, I will joy in the God of my salvation" (Hab. iii. 17, 18). If all outward means of supply fail and be exhausted, if Christ be our Bread, we have all in Him.2 "The Lord is my Portion, saith my soul; therefore will I hope in Him" (Lam. iii, 24). 1 "Fides famem non formidat" (ad Heliodor.). 2 "Beatus homo cujus est Dominus spes ejus, cui nihil deficit, quia Christus ei sufficit" (Petrus Bles., Ep. 102). 228 "AND FORGIVE US OUR DEBTS." THIS petition is closely connected with that which we have just considered: "Give and forgive." We might well scruple to pray for the continuance of life and of God's temporal and spiritual bounties in the future, when we reflect how we have abused and perverted His favours in the past. With what grace can we pray for "bread this day," when we made so unthankful, perhaps so sinful, an use of that which we received yesterday? May not our abuse of past mercies bring upon us God's just indignation and punishment? according as it is written, "Woe unto them! for they have fled from Me: destruction unto them! because they have transgressed against Me: though I have redeemed them, yet they have spoken lies against Me. And they have not cried unto Me with their heart, when they howled upon their beds: they assemble themselves for corn and wine, and they rebel against Me" (Hos. vii. 13, 14). Again, to what purpose is it that our life is prolonged, if by our sins we are exiled from God's favour, which "is better than the life itself?" (Ps. lxiii. 3.) There must be thousands in the other world who, while they were here, clung just as tenaciously to life as we do, who would now be thankful indeed if they had been cut off earlier, before they had the opportunity of "treasuring up to themselves" such accumulations of "wrath against the day of wrath" (Rom. ii. 5), and of ruining countless other souls as well as their own. We sometimes deplore the judgments of God which hurry to a "sudden destruction" those who are in the very act of sin : but such judgments, awful as they are, may, nevertheless, be not unmingled with mercy; not only to society at large, which is no longer infected by the taint of their active evil example, but also to themselves, who are thereby prevented from adding, by further sin, to the punishment which awaits transgression. The petition "Give us this day our daily bread" needs therefore to be qualified by this which follows. Again, to the child of God, life and the good things of this world are as nothing: they give neither comfort nor enjoyment to the soul so long as it labours under the sense of sin unforgiven, and of estrangement from God. As he sits at the table on which his feast is spread, he seems ever to see "the fingers of a man's hand writing on the plaister of the wall," so that "his countenance is changed, and his thoughts trouble him" (Dan. v. 5, 6). But when in answer to his prayer God has "lifted up the light of His countenance upon him," he can say with David, “Thou hast put gladness into my heart, more than in the time that their corn and their wine increased" (Ps. iv. 6, 7). Again, the child of God is conscious that very often adversity and sorrow are closely connected with sin: and that the “daily bread" is in danger of being withholden, because of his past transgressions which have never been duly repented of and forsaken. "Therefore the showers have been withholden, and there hath been no latter rain" (Jer. iii. 3). "Your iniquities have turned away these things, and your sins have withholden good things from you" (v. 25); and hence he sees a deep significance in the word "and," which connects this petition with that immediately preceding it. Again, as in the preceding petition we prayed for the Gift of the Bread of Heaven, Jesus Christ, we here pray that we may receive Him to salvation, not to condemnation; that we may be not unworthy to receive so Holy a Visitant;1 and that as "the Sun of Righteousness" (Mal. iv. 2) beams so brightly upon us, the clouds of sin which have so long darkened and 1 "Et quia Corpore Christi indigni sumus quamdiu peccatis foedamur, ideo dimitte nobis debita nostra'" (S. Bern. Exp. orat. Dom.). |