Tag: bread

That Daily Hungers May Be Fed

The car breaks down, or news arrives,
fragments the plans we've laid.
We turn to juggle jags and gyves,
the crises of the day.

Yet measure out the flour and salt,
the water and the yeast,
for in the midst of life and all 
we're called unto the feast.

So let this be th'unbroken plan,
the rule that guides our days:
to do whatever need demands
and offer it as praise,

to sink our hands into the mess
of water, salt, and flour,
to knead the dust that it may bless
the table and the hour.

Look down, O Christ, upon this bread,
these little things we lift
that daily hungers may be fed,
and make of it a gift.

Then join us at the table here
to bless the food we take
for ease and comfort—O, draw near
and share the bread we break!

Woman baking bread (c. 2200 BC); Louvre, By Rama, CC BY-SA 3.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69938567

Be With Us There

Not only in the broken bread,
the cup we bless and share:
Be present in the feasts we spread
and in the blessing prayer.
Where hunger and your gifts are wed,
where tables once were bare,
wherever we are truly fed,
O Lord, be with us there.

From Eden we were sent away
but you were not cast out,
and yet down every road we take
we find you there somehow.
You scatter food along the way
and rain into our drought.
You are the light of each new day
and manna on the ground.

And somehow, too, you are the road
and you the journey's end,
and everywhere we come and go
you journey as a friend.
Then when the sky with sunset glows,
Lord, stay with us and rest.
We know you as we've always known:
in breaking of the bread.

Carl Moll – Speisezimmer I By Carl Moll – Lempertz, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=46035613

Bitter Bread

The harvest of our sorrows—
the bitter dust we tilled,
the anguish of the harrows—
this grain we took and milled.
We leavened it with ashes
and kneaded it with tears
to lay it on your altar.
O Christ, come meet us here.

We long to bring you glories,
the bread of finest wheat
and wine to send us soaring,
and lay them at your feet,
to make our best our offering
for you to make divine—
Here is the bread of suffering
and tears distilled as wine.

O higher than the angels,
above all earthly crowns,
you did not spurn the manger—
You do not spurn us now.
When all that we can give you
is brokenness as bread,
you take what you are given
and fill it with yourself.

A Kremikovtsi Monastery fresco (15th century) depicting the Last Supper celebrated by Jesus and his disciples. The early Christians too would have celebrated this meal to commemorate Jesus’ death and subsequent resurrection. Photo By Edal Anton Lefterov – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15129262

Eat

Before the breaking of the bread
or walking on the sea,
before your rest in manger-bed
or Mary's “let it be,”
before you spoke and bid us hear
or our own tongues unfurled,
before our hunger called you near
you fed us in the world.

You did not wait 'til Bethlehem
to join us in the dust,
nor for the new Jerusalem
to break your bread with us,
but you who kneaded Eden's soil
to sculpt us as your face
you labored with us in our toil,
in our meals took your place.

There's not a crumb upon the board
that did not come from you,
and whether we could see you, Lord,
or not, you lay there, too.
You made the stomach of our need
and made it to be filled.
You made yourself the bread we eat,
and you will feed us still.

Slab stele from mastaba tomb of Itjer at Giza. 4th Dynasty, 2543–2435 BC. Itjer is seated at a table with slices of bread, shown vertical by convention. Egyptian Museum, Turin. Photo By Ian Alexander – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54612130

Manna

“I am the bread of life.
Your ancestors ate the manna in the desert, but they died;
this is the bread that comes down from heaven
so that one may eat it and not die.
I am the living bread that came down from heaven;
whoever eats this bread will live forever;
and the bread that I will give is my flesh for the life of the world.”
—John 6:41-51

You sank your fingers in the earth
to dredge the furrows of our birth
and planted first a garden there
with seeds you made, all good to bear.

All times and seasons you have set
to plow and plant, to reap and rest.
You turn the earth and send it rain,
and you yourself prepare the grain.

So all we harvest is your gift:
You fill the empty hands we lift;
you fill the earth to stir the seed;
you fill us, too, who see our need.

Not earth's alone, but heaven's bread
you give us, Lord, and we are fed.
As every day we eat and live,
our life is in the bread you give.

You are yourself the bread of life,
and those who eat will never die,
no more as seeds to fall and sleep
but evermore your feast to keep.

Though still we hunger, knowing this
our daily bread a foretaste is.
You grow and bless; we take and eat,
and every bite is manna sweet.

Albert Samuel Anker – Still-Life with Coffee, Bread and Potatoes By Albert Anker – http://www.sightswithin.com/Search/albert%20anker/Page_2/, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=37060415

Vine

As Eve and Adam ate and fell,
all swallowed by the gates of death,
their children in its shadow dwell:
The teeth of hell are locked and clenched.

Woe for the fruit that passed our lips!
Oh, that we would have kept our fast!
What would we give for one small sip
of Eden's streams—but they are past.

So we become the meat and drink
that gluts the hungry maw of death
yet never fills it to the brink.
If it could, death would swallow heav'n.

O Christ, whose fall was marked by ours,
you came to be death's bread and wine.
It swallowed you down, soul and scars,
and up you sprouted like a vine.

Around the gateposts then you wound,
your living bursting from the dead.
The gates of hell came crashing down,
and death was choked by wine and bread.

Out of the garden, you, firstfruits,
took Eve and Adam from the ground,
not broken reeds but living shoots,
and brought them where the sun shines out.

Now Christ the sower, Christ the seed,
you bear us on your upward climb
to where the harvest ever feeds
on heaven's living bread and wine.

Convolvulus vine twining around a steel fixed ladder By Namazu-tron – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=7282183

Baking

Though it's little, take and bless it,
all I offer you, O Lord,
since my hands would now be empty
had not goodness overflowed.
From the sun you made and lifted
all the world is warmed and fed,
and the grain you first had given
has become my daily bread.

I am dust, but you have seen me;
you have filled my hands with flour.
In the mixing and the kneading
I am copying your power,
for you kneaded us and made us
from the rich and fertile soil.
God, the bread that I am baking
carries your creation's joy.

It is little, almost nothing,
but what else could little give?
Yet it bears the weight of loving:
Gracious Lord, receive my gift.
By your gifts alone I've made it,
seed and sunlight, rain and earth.
Take this little; bless and break it
for the feeding of the world.

Woman baking bread (c. 2200 BC); Louvre By Rama, CC BY-SA 3.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69938567

Loaf

A single grain of wheat alone
cannot a loaf become,
but all that grew as Christ had sown
are gathered into one.
Though each is threshed by different means,
their chaff is cast away
and, gathered first or lately gleaned,
they join the harvest day.

So wide and winding is the field
where Christ has cast the seeds,
that patiently he waits their yield
who will not pluck the weeds.
But weeds and wheat together grow
that not a grain be lost,
and which is which he only knows
who bought them at his cost.

Though we are ground down day by day
as wheat is turned to flour,
yet Christ who loves each seed and grain
is with us every hour.
He gathers us to make his bread
from every seed he sows.
If one is lost, the loaf is less:
He will not let us go.

Woman baking bread (c. 2200 BC); Louvre By Rama, CC BY-SA 3.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69938567

Feed

You feed me, and I hunger still.
You give me drink, and still I thirst
as if my cup will never fill.
I am as hungry as at first.

So I must call to you again,
you who have given o'er and o'er,
world without end, amen, amen.
I still must ask you more and more.

You daily hear, and daily give.
You pour anew the blood-red wine
and bless the bread I need to live.
You fill again these hands of mine,

for you have made me hollow, Lord,
this earthen vessel from your hand.
You chose the substance, chose the form:
Forever empty I shall stand.

Forever you will fill my need.
Forevermore I shall not want.
In verdant pastures where you lead,
I'll drink forever from the font

and I will eat the bread you made.
Forever you will nourish me
there at the table you have laid
and laid again eternally.

Woman baking bread (c. 2200 BC); Louvre, Photo By Rama, CC BY-SA 3.0 fr, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=69938567

Table Song For Exiles

As you broke bread in Nazareth
before your desert road,
O Christ incarnate, bone and breath,
I long to taste my home.
The tables where I learned to eat,
to listen and to talk,
they held the bread of finest wheat
and honey from the rock.

The tears that fill your water jars,
now let them be transformed:
Pour out the wine that cheers my heart
in memory and hope.
Give me the bread of earthly love,
the flavors I have known,
and let it be the savor of
my everlasting home.

If I forget Jerusalem—
O Lord, if I forget,
remind me of myself again
in every taste of bread,
and let it tell me of the home
where you have made a place,
where every tribe and tongue is known,
and every feast is grace.

By Sapp0512 – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=113655277