Bread - Friday

This week, I have been thinking about our daily bread.

Today, many kinds of bread are being baked in the different cultures around the world, some of them remarkable for the additional ingredients that are added to them – butter, eggs, milk, and herbs, for example.

Last year there was a vote, online, for the best bread in the world. Garlic butter naan won the top prize. My granddaughters would say that the bread that I make for them every week is the best. It’s all down to personal opinion.

But there is very good food in simple bread.

It’s no surprise that bread appears in the accounts of Jesus after his Resurrection from the dead. On the beach at the Sea of Tiberius, he had fish and bread on the fire for the disciples who were fishing. After he had walked with two of them on the road to Emmaus, Jesus broke bread – it was in that moment that they recognised him.

The next time that we see bread in front of us on the table, we should think of its symbolic significance over the centuries. We should give it the respect it deserves as a food. And we should wish for the same blessing that the two disciples received in Emmaus – to recognise Jesus in the breaking of the bread and to ask him to satisfy our great hunger.

I am greatly indebted to Mairead McIver for her advice.