More than just ‘daily’ bread

For years, YouTube account Islamic Origins, visited so far by only 8,200 subscribers, has always been an interesting stop for open-minded Catholics and Muslims wanting to explore landscapes outside oral tradition. Managed by a former Franciscan monk, the vlog dissects Christianity and Islam from the standpoint of linguistics, archaeology, numismatics, and historiography.

Though it conveys some tolerable biases given the background of the owner, the vlogs, seamlessly discussed in other accounts (Pfander Films, CIRA, Apostate Prophet, Sam Shamoun, Christian Prince, and Lloyd de Jongh), dive deep into archival, scholarly, documentary, and rarely accessed sources to incisively argue subject matters beclouded by lack of knowledge.

Recently, the author discovered a deep Christological elucidation about the ‘Our Father’ that you and I, especially Catholics, are exposed to whenever we attend a Mass. Also called the Lord’s Prayer, it appears twice in the Bible, namely in the Sermon of the Mount (Matthew 6:9–13) and in the Gospel of Luke (11:2-4), which is the shorter version. In his post, Mel, the vlogger, wrote:

“For years, I’ve prayed the Our Father but not realised that ‘daily’ bread is a mistranslation. Epiousios means ‘super-substance’ bread, ‘substance from above,’ ‘supernatural,’ (or) ‘manna from heaven.’ Literally the Our Father prayer is referring to the Eucharist and using a word that later in the Church was called ‘transubstantiation.’ The “Epiousios bread” that we are commanded by Jesus to pray for is the Eucharist. It is all there in the Bible.”

He added: “If you don’t believe me, just look up “ousios” on its own, it means ‘substance.’ I can’t think of a good reason why across the board, the real meaning (of the word) is hidden from us. It has nothing to do with ‘daily.’ The false translation is imposed, perhaps because it sounds too ‘Catholic’ maybe, since the 16th century…” The term is synonymous with ‘essential.’

This surprising revelation, which can send goosebumps to believers in the mystery that is happening during the consecration of the host in the Holy Eucharist, reinforces the undisputed claim that the Scriptures, despite man’s failure to live it fully, are all inspired.

Matthew’s gospel message is curiously retained and borrowed in the Koran (Surah 5:114) where Jesus, son of Mary, prayed: “O Allah, our Lord! Send us from heaven a table spread with food as a feast for us—the first and last of us—and as a sign from You. Provide for us! You are indeed the Best Provider.” Again, this reinforces the Catholic belief that the Holy Eucharist is a spiritual manifestation of Jesus’ presence in the Mass in remembrance of the Last Supper.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC) teaches that the Holy Eucharist is both a sacrament and a sacrifice, and that during the consecration at Mass, transubstantiation takes place. The whole substance of the bread becomes the Body of Christ, and the whole essence of the wine becomes the Blood of Christ, with only the appearances of the bread and wine remaining.

In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist, the CCC explains, “the body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ and, therefore, the whole Christ is truly, really, and substantially contained.” Through the consecration of the bread and wine, there takes place a change of the whole substance of the bread into the substance of the Body of Christ our Lord and of the whole material of the wine into the substance of His Blood. The holy Catholic Church has fittingly and properly called this transformation as transubstantiation.

The essential signs of the Eucharist are wheat bread and grape wine, on which the blessing of the Holy Spirit is invoked and the priest pronounces the words of consecration spoken by Jesus during the Last Supper: “This is my body which will be given up for you… This is the cup of my blood…”

The mystery of faith, quoting St. Thomas Aquinas, states: “Godhead here in hiding, whom I do adore, masked by these bare shadows, shape and nothing more, See, Lord, at Thy service low lies here a heart Lost, all lost in wonder at the God Thou art.”