bread...a missional recipe

The bread makes clear how you should love your union with one another. Could the bread have been made from one grain, or were many grains of wheat required. Yet before they cohered as bread, each grain was isolated. They were fused in water, after being ground together. Unless wheat is pounded, and then moistened with water, it can hardly take on the new identity we call bread. In the same way, you had to be ground in preparation for baptism's water, and in this way you were watered to take on the new identity of bread.

But the bread must be finished by baking in fire.But the dough does not become bread until it is baked in fire. And what does fire represent to you? It is the anointing with oil [ after the water of baptism ]. Oil which feeds the fire, is the mystery of the Holy Spirit...The Holy Spirit comes to you, fire after water, and you are baked into bread which is the Christ's Body. This is how you unity is symbolized. ( Augustine's Sermon 272 ).

a grain of wheat must die

it must be crushed ( humility )

it is combined with others by the water of baptism

it, the raw ingredients are molded and shaped

oil, anointing and the fire, mystery of the Holy Spirit

bread, the Body of Christ...made ready to feed the world

Comments

[joseph]

That's a great quote; I love the imagery-play.