The Form of our Daily Bread

            When Jesus shares with His disciples what has come to be known as the “Lord’s prayer,” He instructs them to ask for their “daily bread.”  In the whole context of Christ’s saving plan, this earnest begging for the sustenance of ordinary life is also meant to prepare in us an openness to receive the extraordinary gift of the Eucharistic Lord Himself:  “I am the Bread come down from Heaven.”  It is no coincidence that our praying of the Our Father at Holy Mass so closely precedes the distribution of the Lord’s gift of the Sacred Host in Holy Communion.

            Throughout my preoperative days in Florida, I would celebrate Holy Mass each day in private.  I had brought along from our Parish all of the essentials for the celebration:  simple vestments, candles, a pyx and small chalice, a copy of Magnificat containing all of the daily prayers and readings, a cross made from some of the wood of the Crucifix hanging in our Sanctuary, etc.  And, obviously, I also included a small number of unconsecrated hosts, enough to receive one per day.

            On the night before I was to have surgery, I was faced with the fact that I would have to fast before the operation early the next day.  So---perhaps for the first time in my Priestly life---I consecrated just a fragment of one small host and a few drops of wine.  The piece of bread was just large enough to be delicately broken, but no larger.  In its beautiful smallness, the immensity of Christ appeared all the greater.

            I did not consider at the time that the reception of a mere fragment of the Sacred Host and a tiny sip of the Precious Blood would become the normative way I would have to receive the elements of the Lord’s Sacrifice during these first months wearing my mouth splint.  In each of the days following surgery, I would prepare for the celebration of the Eucharist by breaking off a little portion of the host (the size of host ordinarily distributed each day to the faithful), so that it could fit between my cheek and splint to dissolve there.  The few drops of wine would have to pass through the three holes in my mouth splint created for sipping and breathing.

            As the days of my convalescence went by, I remember marveling that each day I would go to the same small host to break off another tiny fragment.  I did not have need of using another one during the whole two weeks before I returned to Queen of Peace.  One small host---the identical one taken in hand yesterday and also to be used tomorrow---was always sufficient for today, as my daily bread.  I came to see in it the continuity of the Lord’s gifts over time:  always a little portion, lest we be unable to receive and digest too much.

            I am becoming accustomed to the smallness and softness of what food and drink I am allowed to ingest in the time out of my splint.  In terms of basic calorie delivery, all is good; I am back to my normal weight and so truly lack for nothing.  Yet, paradoxically, somehow I feel that the immense preciousness of Christ’s smallness has increased in me.  What can a mother possibly think in pondering the fact of a few millimeters of life weighing virtually nothing carried in the depths of her womb?

            On the final evening in Florida before returning to Queen of Peace, I celebrated Holy Mass in the evening.  Afterward, as I was packing everything up to go home, I was puzzled with what to do with the dozen or so extra unconsecrated hosts that I had brought along but not needed; they had gotten roughed up a bit in their weeks of travel.  Because the home where I was staying was located on a lovely bay connected to the Gulf of Mexico, I decided in the dark of night to unite the “loaves” with the fishes, so to speak. 

            As I quietly went out on the pier and dropped each round piece of bread into the dark bay, I noticed a single light on the next door neighbor’s nearby pier shining down onto the water.  Directly beneath that light---perhaps twenty feet from where I stood---was poised a single pelican, patiently waiting in all probability for its daily fish. While the perfect white circles floated on the surface of the water, the current moved them gently toward the bird, which rather than consume them eventually glided away into the night. 

            I couldn’t help but think at that moment of the One Whom the pelican represents in Catholic iconography.  Because the breast of this strange bird is often bloodied by the marine life it catches in the process of trying to feed its young, the pelican is often depicted on Altars (for example, those at St. Anthony de Padua Church in South Bend or St. Monica Parish in Mishawaka) as a symbol of Christ Himself.  For the pelican, it appears as if the gift of daily sustenance and the gift of its very substance are one and the same.  For Jesus Christ in the daily offering of the Holy Eucharist---miracle of miracles---it is truly so.