The Rosary in a Year (with Fr. Mark-Mary Ames) - Day 10: Daily Bread

Episode Date: January 10, 2025

What is the “daily bread” we pray for in the Our Father? Fr. Mark-Mary provides Biblical examples from the Gospels and Exodus to reveal how God is always providing daily bread for his people. The manna in Exodus and Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew illustrate what “daily bread” can look like for the modern Christian. Today’s focus is “Give us this day our daily bread” and we will be praying one Our Father, three Hail Marys, and one Glory Be. For the complete prayer plan, visit https://ascensionpress.com/riy.

Hi, I'm Father Mark Mary with the Franciscan Friars of the Renewal, and this is the Rosary in a Year podcast, where through prayer and meditation, the Rosary brings us deeper into relationship with Jesus and Mary and becomes a source of grace for the whole world. The Rosary in a Year is brought to you by Ascension. This is Day 10. To download the prayer plan for Rosary in a Year, visit ascensionpress.com forward slash rosaryinayear or text R-I-Y to 33777. You'll get an outline of how we're going to pray each month. It's great way to track your progress. The best place to listen to this podcast is in the Ascension

app. There are special features built just for this podcast and also recordings of the full Rosary with myself and other friars. No matter what app you're listening in, remember to tap follow or subscribe for your daily notifications. Give us this day our daily bread. What we're going to focus on here in this petition is the daily part of the daily bread. And if you'll join me, let's go back to the book of Exodus. It's the Israelites being led by

Moses are traveling through the desert out of slavery to the promised land. This is Exodus chapter 16, starting at verse 15. So they saw the bread. When the sons of Israel saw it, referring to the manna, they said to one another, what is it? For they did not know what it was. And Moses said to them, It is the bread which the Lord has given you to eat. This is what the Lord has commanded. Gather of it every man of you as much as he can eat. You shall take an omer a piece according to the number of the persons whom each of you has in his tent. And the sons of Israel did so. They gathered some more, some less, but when they measured it with an omer,

he that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack. Each gathered according to what he could eat. And Moses said to them, let no man leave any of it till morning. So here we go, and this is a prefigurement of what Jesus is going to fulfill in the New Testament. The Israelites are a pilgrim people and they're in the desert and God provides for them. He provides for them bread, daily bread.

And Moses tells the people, let no man leave any of it till the morning. Each day they're gonna have to go and gather, again, the manna, their daily bread. There's a really important line here. He that gathered much had nothing over, and he that gathered little had no lack. Each gathered according to what he could eat. God provided, and as the people of Israel were obedient,

they had exactly what they needed. Now let's go to the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew chapter six, starting at verse 25, the Lord Jesus says, therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life. What you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on it, is not life more than food and the body more than clothing.

Look at the birds of the air, they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns and yet your heavenly father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And skipping down a few verses, this is chapter six, verse 34. Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself, but the day's own trouble be sufficient for the day.

And so here is a little bit of an explanation of what daily bread is going to look like for the Christian. For those of us who are not simply making an external journey from one location to another, but the internal journey from the slavery of our own sin to the total freedom of being sons and daughters of God. Jesus is still going to give us daily bread. And so he says, like, don't be anxious about tomorrow. And what he's saying is, stay here with me. I'm giving you the grace for today.

I'm giving you what you need for today. Like the Israelites who had what they needed for the day, no one was lacking. I'm giving you a share in my grace. I'm giving you a share in my own life. I'm not giving you what you need for tomorrow or next week or the next month. I haven't promised that, but I've promised to give you what you need for today. And he who has created you, he who has called you, he who is giving you what you need for today to be faithful, to persevere, he's not going

to abandon you tomorrow and he's not going to abandon you tomorrow, and He's not going to abandon you next week. And so the movement of the Christian, right, is not a trust in circumstances. Our trust is in a person. Our trust is in God, and Jesus is in the present moment. And I'd like to pull from two parts again, from the book of Exodus and the people of Israel and their relationship with manna. They all received what they needed for the day.

And what this bread is going to look like for us, the daily nourishment that we need to continue on the journey to be faithful, particularly this journey of discipleship and ongoing conversion. It's the life of grace in us, particularly the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity, which will bear fruit in all of the virtues. This is the daily bread. It's not an external thing. It's an internal reality.

It's the sharing of His own divine life with us, which we call grace. And the Lord is giving us the grace we need for today. The grace to persevere in the suffering today, the grace to carry our daily cross today, the grace to be generous and joyful today, like this is what He's offering us. Secondly, if you'll notice the people of Israel, they had to go each day again and gather their daily bread. their daily bread. And for us, the Christian, this daily going to gather the daily bread is daily prayer. The grace is there. It's being offered generously. It's overflowing. But we need to come to the Lord and receive our daily

bread through our own personal prayer life each and every day. So my brothers and sisters, the Lord Jesus Christ has taught us to pray, give us this day our daily bread. Knowing that He Himself is our daily bread, that He gives us what we need for today. And so we don't have to be anxious about tomorrow. But that we do need to come to Him to receive again the grace we need to persevere joyfully and generously each and every day.

Let us ask for this bread now as we pray in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.

Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God, pray for us sinners. Now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Hail Mary full of grace. The Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, mother of God.

Pray for us sinners now and at the hour of our death. Amen. Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit as it was in the beginning, is now and ever shall be. World without end. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. All right. Thanks, everybody. Thanks for joining me, praying with me again today, receiving with me our daily bread. And I look forward to continuing the journey with you tomorrow.

Poco a poco. All right. God bless you all.