We depend upon God in all things.  He is our Creator and also our Preserver.  We could not live a single moment without his aid.  As we are composed of body and soul our wants are twofold, we have requirements for the body and others for the soul.  We stand in need of food, shelter and clothing for body.  All, rich and poor alike, must petition God for these, for each one stands in God’s hand.  God can cast the rich man down like Job, and free the poor man from all want.  The word bread includes all necessities of life.  “Give me neither beggary nor riches:  give me only the necessaries of life” (Prov. xxx, 8).

That we are told to pray for our daily bread should remind us that we must not be too solicitous for the morrow.  He who gives unto us to-day will also provide for us to-morrow if we humbly ask Him.  We say:  Our bread, because it is our duty to earn it in an honorable manner by industry and labor.  “He who toils not, shall not eat.”  We say also our bread, and not my bread, because we wish the poor who can not help themselves to have it as well as we ourselves, and we must share it with them as much as our means allow.

As our body requires nourishment, so does our soul.  The food of the soul is the word of God, and the Bread of Life that came down from heaven.  We must partake of this Bread of the soul by hearing the word of God, by reading and meditation, and by receiving the Sacraments.

Thus has Jesus in the four first petitions taught and commanded us to ask for everything that is necessary for the attainment of our last end.  In the three remaining petitions He instructs us to pray for protection against all things which are obstacles to the attainment of that end.

II.  In these three petitions we ask that everything may be averted that would hinder us from attaining our true goal, our salvation and the glorification of God.

1.  This obstacle, however, is sin and its evil consequences and these three petitions have reference to sin and its evil consequences.  We, like all men, are sinners, and in our sins we can not worship God properly, nor can we attain our salvation if God does not show mercy to us.  For this reason we humbly implore God in the fifth petition:  “Forgive us our trespasses.”  In these words we implore God to grant unto us and to our fellow men a sincerely contrite heart and to graciously forgive us our sins and the punishment due for them.  As a condition of forgiveness, however, God exacts from us that we forgive those who have offended us, as fully as we desire that God forgive us.  Therefore, we add:  “As we forgive those who trespass against us.”

2.  In the sixth petition we implore God that He would graciously preserve us from falling into sin.  “Lead us not into temptation.”  With these words we urge God that He should keep from us temptation to sin, or, if through temptation He desires to try us, that He grant us abundant graces to conquer it.  Temptations do not come from God, but from our own nature, from Satan and from the world.  God permits them in His wisdom to try our love for Him, to preserve us in humility, and to strengthen us, to animate our zeal for virtue and to increase our merits.  God will assist us in temptation if we are exposed to it without any fault of ours.