Sermons on Selected Lessons of the New Testament

¹⁰ But this bread, Dearly beloved, by which our body is filled, by which the flesh is recruited day by day; this bread, I say, God gives not to those only who praise, but to those also who blaspheme Him; “Who makes His sun to rise upon the evil and on the good, and sends rain upon the just and on the unjust.” Thou praisest Him, and He feeds you; you blaspheme Him, He feeds you. He waits for you to repent; but if you will not change yourself, He will condemn you. Because then both good and bad receive this bread from God, do you think there is no other bread for which the children ask, of which the Lord said in the Gospel, “It is not meet to take the children's bread, and to cast it to dogs?” Yes, surely there is. What then is that bread? And why is it called daily? Because this is necessary as the other; for without it we cannot live; without bread we cannot live. It is shamelessness to ask for wealth from God; it is no shamelessness to ask for daily bread. That which ministers to pride is one thing, that which ministers to life another. Nevertheless, because this bread which may be seen and handled, is given both to the good and bad; there is a daily bread, for which the children pray. That is the word of God, which is dealt out to us day by day. Our bread is daily bread; and by it live not our bodies, but our souls. It is necessary for us who are even now labourers in the vineyard—it is our food, not our hire. For he that hires the labourer into the vineyard owes him two things; food, that he faint not, and his hire, wherewith he may rejoice. Our daily food then in this earth is the word of God, which is dealt out always in the Churches: our hire after labour is called eternal life. Again, if by this our daily bread you understand what the faithful receive, what you shall receive, when you have been baptized, it is with good reason that we ask and say, “Give us this day our daily bread;” that we may live in such sort, as that we be not separated from the Holy Altar.

11. “And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” Touching this petition again we need no explanation, that it is for ourselves that we pray. For we beg that our debts may be forgiven us. For debtors are we, not in money, but in sins. You are saying perchance at this moment, And you too. We answer, Yes, we too. What, you Holy Bishops, are you debtors? Yes, we are debtors too. What you! My Lord. Be it far from you, do not yourself this wrong. I do myself no wrong, but I say the truth; we are debtors: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.” We have been baptized, and yet are we debtors. Not that anything then remained, which was not remitted to us in Baptism, but because in our lives we are contracting ever what needs daily forgiveness. They who are baptized, and immediately depart out of this life, come up from the font without any debt; without any debt they leave the world. But they who are baptized and are still kept in this life, contract defilements by reason of their mortal frailty, by which though the ship be not sunk, yet have they need of recourse to the pump. For otherwise little by little will that enter in by which the whole ship will be sunk. And to offer this prayer, is to have recourse to the pump. But we ought not only to pray, but to do alms also, because when the pump is used to prevent the ship from sinking, both the voices and hands are at work. Now we are at work with our voices, when we say, “Forgive us our debts, as we also forgive our debtors.” And we are at work with our hands when we do this, “Break your bread to the hungry, and bring the houseless poor into your house. Shut up alms in the heart of a poor man, and it shall intercede for you unto the Lord.”