Day 23 Bread

"Still life with Bottle, Carafe and Bread" Monet

                                                                                   
“Yes; the Bread of Life, the Water of Life, the Word by which man lives, the 'meat to eat which ye know not of,' and much more, cease to be figurative expressions, except that we must use the same words to name the corporeal and the incorporeal sustenance of man. We understand, moreover, how ideas emanating from our Lord and Saviour, which are of His essence, are the spiritual meat and drink of His believing people. We find it no longer a 'hard saying,' nor a dark saying, that we must sustain our spiritual selves upon Him, even as our bodies upon bread.”

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“But the children ask for bread and we give them a stone; we give information about objects and events which mind does not attempt to digest but casts out bodily (upon an examination paper?). But let information hang upon a principle, be inspired by an idea, and it is taken with avidity and used in making whatsoever in the spiritual nature stands for tissue in the physical.”

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“We forget that it is written, Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God shall man live, ––whether it be spoken in the way of some truth of religion, poem, picture, scientific discovery, or literary expression; by these things men live and in all such is the life of the spirit. The spiritual life requires the food of ideas for its daily bread.”
 
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“‘It was not Moses that gave you the bread.’ (Jn 6:32) Our Lord is not wearied with the wilfulness of the people. In answer to the querulous demand He reveals the origin of all that nourishes men in body, soul, and spirit. The poet who fires in us with highest thoughts, the inventor who makes the ways of life, easy, the farmer who produces bread – it is not Moses nor another; not any of these from whom we get the food that quickens us – they are but the vehicles.
     ‘The bread of God’ (v.33) is one, however it be conveyed, and is to be known by two signs; - It cometh down out of heaven and is holy, heavenly, undefiled; and it giveth life unto the world. The life-giving thought or discovery, the food and the teaching by which men live, are all of Him.”
 
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“The song that cheers a man in listless mood,
Things carved and pictured, wrought in stone
and wood
According to My pattern – these are good.”


Examen: For Mason, it is not only bread and wine that have symbolic weight and invite communion.  What happens when I look at the classroom in this way? 

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Yes; the Bread: Charlotte M. Mason, Parents, 2:246.
But the children:  Charlotte M. Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, 6:26.
We forget that: 6:125.
It was not Moses: Scale How Meditations, 170 Several of Mason’s meditations expand her view of The Bread of Life. Dr. Benjamin Bernier notes, “Mason upholds the doctrine of the Uniqueness of Christ, ‘The sole and continuous Sustenance of Man.’”
The song that: “Revival: The Saviour of the World - Volume VI (1914): The Training of the Disciples,” Routledge & CRC Press, 85, accessed June 7, 2024, https://www.routledge.com/Revival-The-Saviour-of-the-World---Volume-VI-1914-The-Training-of-the-Disciples/Mason/p/book/9781138567535.

Day 23 Bread meditation/100 Days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025
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