God is generous. Through the prophet Isaiah, God invites us to “come to Me” for our
needs: “All you who are thirsty come to the water! You who have no money, come
receive grain and eat; Come without paying and without cost, drink wine and milk! Why
spend your wages for what is not bread… Come to Me?” (Is 1:1-3).
We might assume that Isaiah doesn’t actually mean that God will give us water, wine,
milk and bread, which are symbols of spiritual realities. Nevertheless, God provided His
people with manna and water during their many years in the desert. John L. McKenzie
comments on this passage: “The prophet no doubt looks beyond material provisions,
but food and drink are not a mere metaphor for such things as revelation. … to accept
the food of Yahweh as sufficient … is to commit oneself to live truly and fully” (Second
Isaiah, 143).
Pope Francis, reflecting on today’ Gospel, asserts: “Jesus ensures there is food for
those who follow Him and who, in order to be with Him, forgot to make provisions. At
times the spiritual and the material are in opposition, but in reality spiritualism, like
materialism, is alien to the Bible. It is not biblical language. The compassion and
tenderness that Jesus showed towards the crowds is not sentimentality, but rather the
concrete manifestation of the love that cares for the people’s needs” (Eighteenth
Sunday, August 2, 2020).
In our prayers before and after meals, we acknowledge that God is the ultimate source
of all that we eat and drink, not only in creating the variety of things we eat and drink but
also establishing the conditions that made it possible that we have these particular
things that nourish our appetites and enrich our lives.
In his Commentary on the Lord’s Prayer, St. Thomas Aquinas reminds us that whatever
we have is from God: “Jesus shows that our temporal wants are provided us by God. It
is this that is meant when we say: ‘Give us this day our daily bread’ … A person grows
proud in his riches, and does not realize that what he has comes from God. All things
that we have, be they spiritual or temporal, are from God” (Thomas Aquinas,
Commentary on the Lord’s Prayer).
Thomas emphasizes that God’s care is a daily care even though many of us want
assurance “for ten days” or “for a year”: “The words ‘our daily bread,’ is bread of one
day or for one time … The Lord, therefore, teaches us to pray that to-day our bread will
be given us, that is, those things which will be needful for us for the present time. For
there are some who daily are anxious about temporal goods which are enough for them
for an entire year; and they who are thus troubled will never have rest: ‘Be not solicitous
therefore, saying: What shall we eat, or What shall we drink, or Wherewith shall we be
clothed?’ (Mt 6:35). The Lord, therefore, teaches us to pray that to-day our bread will be
given us, that is, those things which will be needful for us for the present time” (Thomas
Aquinas, Commentary on the Lord’s Prayer).

God’s care is not only for the devout. God welcomes us through Isaiah, to come and
receive without earning, “You who have no money, come receive grain and eat; come
buy wine and milk without paying and without cost” (Is 55:1).
God doesn’t ask us to pay for what He gives us, not even by doing things that might
make us “deserving.” In all His relations with us, God goes beyond what we might
expect, as Thomas Aquinas explains: “In every work of God viewed in its primary
source, there appears mercy. In all that follows, the power of mercy remains, and works
indeed with even greater force … For this reason, does God out of the abundance of His
goodness bestows upon creatures what is due to them more bountifully than is
proportionate to their deserts; since less would suffice for preserving the order of justice
than what the divine goodness confers…” (1a. 21, 4).
We underestimate God’s goodness to us when we think of Him as another being,
distant from us. What God gives us is not only the many ways that He provides for our
needs but our existence itself. In the Acts of the Apostles, Paul reminds the
philosophers of Athens, “… in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).
St. Thomas comments on this passage: “Creatures are said to be in God … so far as
they are held together and preserved by the divine power; even as we say that things
that are in our power are in us. And creatures are thus said to be in God, even as they
exist in their own natures … our being, living, and moving are themselves caused by
God. In another sense thing are said to be in God, as in Him who knows them” (1a. 18,
4).
“So many and such benefits have been conferred on us by God that no one can count
them. Furthermore, they all tend toward one thing, namely ‘that we be rooted and
grounded in love’ (Eph 3”17).”
“Who will separate us from the love of Christ, i.e. the love by which we love Christ and
neighbor as He commanded: a new commandment I give to you, that you love one
another’ (John 13:34).
The Holy Ghost so strengthens the heart of man that he does not fear for the things that
are necessary for him, but he trusts that God will provide for all his needs. The Holy
Spirit who gives us this strength teaches us to pray to God: ‘Give us this day our daily
bread.’