Our Daily Bread

Prayed slowly and from the heart, the Lord's Prayer succinctly "covers all the bases" to foster a full and fruitful relationship with God. We acknowledge God as Father, and ourselves as not alone, but in communion with all the other members of OUR Father's family. We praise him, we ask that his will be done rather than ours, we pray for the fullfillment of his plan. We ask for our daily bread, the ability to forgive as well as the dispostion to be forgiven, and protection from evil. Usually we rattle this prayer rotely without realizing what we are saying. Here's a suggestion on how to rectify that.
The wisdom writer, Sirach, leads us to contemplation by way of food, a universal need and symbol we can all understand. "Come to me, all you that yearn for me,/ and be filled with my fruit;/ You will remember me as sweeter than honey,/ better to have than the honeycomb./ He who eats of me will hunger still,/ he who drinks of me will thirst for more;/ He who obeys me will not be put to shame,/ her who serves me will never fail." (Sir 24: 18-21). Is this not an echo of the Lord's Prayer...a "prequel" to use a contemporary term, for it was written hundreds of years before Christ? Using this passage along with the Our Father might provide a healthy and substantial portion of our needed daily bread today.
Bro. Rene