Bread

Monday evening, I try to help my mother in the kitchen, preparing dinner for family and visiting grandparents.

Learning to kneed bread, the dough is all sticky and unmanageable to my untrained hands until my mother comes and helps me add more flour to tame it.

And I think, and pray...

"Man does not live on bread alone...Give us this day our daily bread...

what's the origin for the English word 'lady'? Didn't the professor of my Medieval Literature class tell us that it originated from words meaning 'bread maker', while 'lord' meant 'bread protector'? 


...and it does not take much imagination to spin off from this etymology onto a reflection on how the Bread of the World was born of my Lady Mary and how my Lord Jesus is not just my 'bread protector' but my actual daily Bread, in the Sacrament of the Altar, and in the Word!"

* This is a very weak analogy, I know (Mary did not make Jesus herself--by her consent He was formed in her womb by the grace of the Holy Spirit) but somehow reflecting on analogies, weak as they are, can be helpful to me anyway.

* * * * *
and isn't this all just my life? Things go awry so easily (like gluten-y sticky bread dough tying my hands together), I get myself all confused and lost and I just need a little bit of help from others to get un-stuck and back on the right track. Today I am going back to the doctor's office for the test (part of my application requirements) that was originally scheduled for yesterday.

and all I can say right now is, "My Jesus, I trust in You!" But that is enough.