Thought for the week - 4 August 2008

Real Bread

1st of August is Lammas, or “loaf mass”. It’s the time when the first part of the wheat harvest would be ground into flour. That flour would be baked into bread. The loaf would then be used in a special communion service, or “loaf mass”.

Bread is central to Christianity. It is a token of Jesus’ body in the Communion service. He taught us to pray for our daily bread. He talked about the Old Testament manna that fed the Israelites in the desert as “bread from heaven”. Jesus described himself as the bread of life and promised eternal life to those who feed on that living bread. 

But we must not over spiritualise things. It was real bread that Jesus took at supper with his friends. It was real bread that he broke.  It was real bread he gave to his friends saying, “This is my body”.  We really need real bread. So we need real farmers with real fields and real tractors and seed drills and fertilisers and combine harvesters….

The Revd Robert Barlow

Agricultural Chaplain

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