Not by bread alone

In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs food is a basic survival requirement that must, like other physiological needs, be satisfied before higher order needs can be addressed (safety, belonging/love, esteem, then ultimately self-actualisation). Bread is a staple for much of the world. Made from whatever grain is available, bread is a symbol of nourishment. The manna in the desert given to the Hebrews was seen as ‘bread from heaven’.

In our tradition, bread fulfils not only a fundamental, physical need, but in the Eucharist, bread seeks to satisfy our ultimate and highest needs – self-knowledge, acceptance, understanding, encountering the divine.

Grain is harvested, crushed and broken to be made into flour. The flour is leavened with yeast, kneaded and rolled, baked, cooled, broken and shared. Bread is made by human hands, by human intervention. Because it is such an earthy food, it is not surprising then that the image of bread should have such a rich history in our language, our thinking, our theology, our community stories. In linguistics, a word such as companion is made up of two Latin words com – together with, and panis, bread, which together initially meant ‘one who breaks bread with another’.

In Luke’s Gospel (4:1 – 13) Jesus returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the desert for forty days. There he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing, and after that time he was hungry. The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, Man does not live on bread alone.”

This conversation plays out the tension between the bread that provides physiological nourishment and the bread that gives everlasting life. One that fulfils the immediate need to satisfy hunger, the other which is that bread shared at the heavenly banquet. If the stone was made into bread, it would merely satisfy the lowest of our human needs, we need more than this kind of bread, we need that true bread of life.

As Lent begins there is an opportunity to reflect on what our most fundamental needs are beyond those raw, physical necessities; how do we lift ourselves beyond these to become fuller and deeper participants in the divine life? Again, our ancient tradition invites you to enter this season through prayer, penitence and almsgiving, and most particularly through the Table of the Lord. The same Table to which we take plain, simple bread and from which we are offered the ‘Bread of Angels’ (Ps 78:25).