Blessed Bread

I had been thinking about bread and its blessing during the Eucharist, came across a rubric from a Roman Mass which said (after the Hebrew Prayer, Blessed are you Lord God of all creation etc) “Now the Priest takes the Bread, which is now Christ’s Body”  Interesting, so the Hebrew prayer is enough words, that got me thinking….

Yesterday I came up with this, baked a roll, and shared it with our chapter.

Blessed are you, Lord God of all Creation

Blessed indeed is God, Lord of all that is.  We cannot add or take away from you.
You stand in, above and below all that is made, before and behind us, the source of life itself, the breath in all that lives.
We greet you Lord God, and gather in your light and grace.

Blessed are you, Lord God of all Creation
Through your goodness we have this bread to set before you

Such order, manifest in creation, such careful design, the Goodness of your earth, bound up in wheat, the sun and rain in divine proportion gives unto us this golden grain to be ground to the finest flour.
Mineral salt given up from the earth and sea to flavour and colour.
Yeast, the natural leaven the living breath of the bread, the smallest of life creates through decay, new life of goodness and nutrition.
Water, a gift for life, nourishment for parched bodies, enlivens and binds the dough on a path to perfection.

Blessed are you, Lord God of all Creation
Through your goodness we have this bread to set before you
Which earth has given and human hands have made

Hands you have crafted O Lord, work and knead, skilled in the ancient art; knowledge gained from your natural processes put to use for our benefit, earth has given up her best. We craft and create with it our daily bread.

Blessed are you, Lord God of all Creation
Through your goodness we have this bread to set before you
Which earth has given and human hands have made
It will become for us the Bread of Life.

So in recognition of all of this we set aside a portion, enough to taste the goodness throughout which you have created, been creating, intrinsically involved from the very first seed.   In the knowledge that all bread is blessed, a hurried loaf on a Monday morn, a sliced white in a lunch box, fluffy and regularly square, wholegrain and seed bread in careful plait, sourdough, soda, spelt, paskha, rye, olive, rolls and bloomer, split top, French loaf or cob; because it all comes from you, yet in and through this bread, this gift, this offering of your gift back in recognition of all your work,  we ask for a blessing once again, blessing on what has been created and set aside, blessing on those who gather to draw nourishment from it.
Because we do this, we acknowledge all that has gone before and as Christ broke bread and ate with his friends so many times, so we too follow his example and share this blessed bread with all who come to table.

Blessed are you, Lord God of all Creation
Through your goodness we have this bread to set before you
Which earth has given and human hands have made
It will become for us the Bread of Life.

Blessed be God forever.