Our Daily Bread: Glimpsing the Eucharist through the Centuries

In his encyclical Ecclesia de Eucharistia, Pope John Paul II expressed the hope that both priests and faithful should grow in their astonishment, their "stunned wonder," at this amazing way God has given us to experience, already on earth, our union with him―the eucharist. As a person leafs through the pages of this book, passing from century to century, he may sample the writing of one of his favorite saints. From St. Paul to the Corinthians, the earliest account in writing that survives of the eucharist, through Francis of Assisi, Julian of Norwich, up to Blessed Teresa of Calcutta and Pope Benedict XVI, each century, from the first through the 21st, is represented. Readers will discover a whole new attitude to Jesus’ real presence, or perhaps see their very own devotional attitude reflected in the words of someone writing over fifteen hundred years ago. It is hoped that these poems, hymns and readings will provide a deepening of faith and a stimulus to prayer. †

Ralph Wright, OSB, was born in England in 1938 and received his early education at Ampleforth College in Yorkshire. He spent two years in the British Army before becoming a monk at Ampleforth Abbey. After coming down from Oxford, he spent four years studying theology at Fribourg in Switzerland. He was ordained to the Roman Catholic priesthood in 1970. He currently resides at Saint Louis Abbey, St. Louis, MO, where he is vocation director and professor of theology.