After having put God aside, or having tolerated Him as a private choice that should not interfere with public life, certain ideologies have tried to organize society by the force of power and the economy. History dramatically shows us how the goal of ensuring development, material well-being and peace to all, excluding God and his revelation, resulted in people being given stone instead of bread. Bread, dear brothers and sisters, is the “fruit of human hands”, and in this truth lies all the responsibilities entrusted to our hands and our ingenuity; but bread is also, and before that, “fruit of the earth”, which receives the sun and rain from above: it is a gift to be asked for, that takes away all of our pride and makes us cry out with the confidence of the humble: “Father (…), give us this day our daily bread.” (Matt. 6:11)
Man is incapable of giving life by himself, he can only be understood starting from God: it is our relationship with Him, that gives consistency to our humanity and makes our lives good and right. In the Our Father we ask that His name be hallowed, that His kingdom come, that His will is done. Above all else, we must recover the primacy of God in our world and our lives, because it is this very primacy that allows us to recover the truth of who we are, and it is in knowing and following the will of God that we find our true good. Give time and space to God, so that he is the vital centre of our existence. Where to start, as if from the source, to recover and reassert the primacy of God? From the Eucharist: there God draws so close that He becomes food for us, here He becomes strength in the often difficult journey, here He becomes a friendly presence that transforms.
