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To: Salvation
Super-substantial bread: You wouldn’t know it from the English text, but smack dab in the center of the Our Father is one of the greatest Eucharistic references in the Bible. What reads in English as daily is the Greek word epiousios, a combination of epi-, defined as upon or fitting, and ousia, meaning being or substance. The word daily is valid translation, but the Church, at least since Jerome, has kept in mind an alternative translation: ‘super-substantial.’ (In fact, that’s how Matthew 6:11 reads in the Douay-Rheims.) Now what else could ‘super-substantial’ bread be but the Eucharist itself—bread whose substance has been ‘transubstantiated’ into Christ? So how on earth did some translators get day? That comes from focusing on epi- as fitting. In that sense, epiousios refers to whatever is ‘fitting’ or ‘sufficient for our substance,’ according to Theophylact, a Greek father. Still, this word cries out for seeing a deeper meaning. Other than the Our Father, epiousios does not occur anywhere in ancient Greek, ousia itself is a loaded word, and had the writer meant simply day, he would said so using the normal Greek term for it, kath hemeran. This is why the Church has stuck to its guns on the Eucharistic interpretation.

I like everything about this article on the Lord's Prayer but the above. It is true that the Greek word translated as "daily" in English was a word used ONLY in Matthew 6:11 and Luke 11:3 in this prayer, I don't agree that its connotation MUST necessarily be the way Catholicism has used it. From the source http://www.blueletterbible.org/lang/lexicon/lexicon.cfm?Strongs=G1967&t=KJV, we learn that this word means the "bread of our necessity" or "the bread that suffices for each day". Also, in context, it speaks of the nourishment which is ready at hand and suffices - food sufficing from one day to the next. Christ's hearers are bidden to ask of God, in order that they may themselves be relieved of anxiety for the morrow.

The impression I get from this prayer Jesus spoke - and I don't believe that this SPECIFIC prayer must be repeated verbatim - is given to us as He said, "Pray in this manner...." Our prayer life with our Heavenly Father should be all about an intimate communion with Him where our hearts are laid bare before Him in repentance, in gratitude and in love.

15 posted on 07/10/2013 8:15:27 PM PDT by boatbums (God is ready to assume full responsibility for the life wholly yielded to Him.)
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To: boatbums

Thanks, remember that Ecumenical threads are not for argumentation or antagonism.


16 posted on 07/10/2013 8:22:48 PM PDT by Salvation ("With God all things are possible." Matthew 19:26)
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