This is not "my" bread but "our" bread

Vatican City (AICA): Prayer is not an exercise for ascetics, but part of the reality, the heart and the flesh of those who live in need, I remember this morning, Pope Francis, at the general audience of March 27, in which The Pontiff continued his catechesis on the prayer of the Lord 's prayer and stopped at the place where we present our needs to God, give us today our bread every day.

Prayer is not an exercise for ascetics, but part of the reality, the heart and the flesh of those who live in need, I remember this morning, Pope Francis, at the general audience of March 27, in which the pontiff continued his catechesis on the prayer of the Lord 's prayer and stopped at the place where we present our needs to God, give us today our daily bread.

The Holy Father explained that bread meant what was necessary for life: food, water, house, medicines, work. It is a plea, he says, stemming from human existence itself, with its concrete and daily problems, which underlines what we sometimes forget: that we are not self-sufficient, but that we depend on of the goodness of God.

Therefore, the pontiff said that Jesus never goes indifferent to these demands and pains.

It is an urgent request that we address to God the Father, very much like that of a beggar. It stems from evidence that we often forget, namely that we are not self-sufficient and that we have to feed ourselves every day, explained the pope.

In the invocation: "Give us today our daily bread", Jesus teaches us to ask the Father for his daily bread, joined to so many men and women for whom this prayer is a cry painful that accompanies the burning desire of each day, because it misses what is necessary to live.

How many mothers and fathers, even today, go to bed with the torment of not having enough bread for their children the next day! "Exclaimed the pope; and I invite you to imagine this prayer recited not in the safety of a comfortable apartment, but in the precariousness of a room in which we adapt, where there is no enough life.

In this context, Jesus' words take on new strength, he said, because prayer is not an exercise for ascetics, but part of the reality, the heart and the flesh of those who live in need or share the same feeling. condition of who does not have what it takes to live.

That is why Jesus invites us to beg our bread, without ego, in fraternity. Because if we do not pray in this way, the Lord's prayer ceases to be a Christian prayer. If we say that God is our Father, we are called to present ourselves before him as brothers, united in solidarity and ready to share bread with each other; in short, feeling in my hunger also that of many people who are lacking today even what is necessary.

Francis called to be attentive to the request we make to God: the bread that the Christian asks in prayer is not "my bread" is "our bread". This is how Jesus wants it, says one. He teaches us to ask for it not only for ourselves, but for all the fellowship of the world. This is because in my hunger I feel hungry crowds.

Think of the children at war: the starving children of Yemen, the hungry children in Syria, the hungry children in many countries without bread, in southern Sudan. Think of these children and think of them, say together, aloud, the prayer: Father, give us today our daily bread.

Speaking of the miracle of the multiplication of bread made by Jesus, the Pope noted that the Master multiplied the gesture of generosity of the boy willing to share his provision, the five loaves and the two fish. The boy, he said, understood the lesson of the Lord's prayer: this food is not private property, let's put that in the head: food is not private property but a providence to share, with the grace of God. The true miracle accomplished by Jesus that day was not so much the multiplication that is true but the sharing: give what they have and I will do the miracle, he badured. +