Not as common bread or as common drink do we receive these.....We have been taught that the food that has been Eucharistized by the word of prayer, that food which by assimilation nourishes our flesh and blood, is the flesh and blood of the incarnate Jesus.
Interpretation
This quote emphasizes the spiritual significance of the Eucharist, portraying it as more than just physical nourishment.
In this quote, Justin Martyr highlights the profound nature of the Eucharist, suggesting that it transcends ordinary food and drink by being a sacred representation of the flesh and blood of Jesus Christ. He teaches that through the act of prayer and faith, believers receive spiritual nourishment that is vital for their souls, illustrating the deep connection between the divine and the faithful in the pursuit of spiritual sustenance.
In practice
In a sermon discussing the importance of faith, one might use this quote to illustrate the significance of spiritual food in the life of a believer.
We ourselves were well conversant with war, murder and everything evil, but all of us throughout the whole wide earth have traded in our weapons of war. We have exchanged our swords for plowshares, our spears for farm tools...now we cultivate the fear of God, justice, kindness, faith, and the expectation of the future given us through the Crucified One....The more we are persecuted and martyred, the more do others in ever increasing numbers become believers.
Sound doctrine does not enter into the hard and disobedient heart; but, as if beaten back, enters anew into itself.
Let it be understood that those who are not found living as He taught are not Christian- even though they profess with the lips the teaching of Christ.
Now bring what we have into common stock, and communicate to everyone in need; we who hated and destroyed one another, and on account of their different tribe, now since the coming of Christ, live familiarly with them, and pray for our enemies, and endeavor to persuade those who hate us unjustly, to the end that they may become partakers of the same joyful hope of a reward from God the ruler of all.
We expect to receive again our own bodies, though they be dead and cast into the earth, for we maintain that with God nothing is impossible.
Most modern calendars mar the sweet simplicity of our lives by reminding us that each day that passes is the anniversary of some perfectly uninteresting event.
I am often asked what can people do to become a good global citizen? I reply that it begins in your own community.
I urge you to read Eternal Treblinka and think deeply about its important message.
Even if one is neither vain nor self-obsessed, it is so extraordinary to be oneself - exactly oneself and no one else - and so unique, that it seems natural that one should also be unique for someone else.
This world... ever was, and is, and shall be, ever-living Fire, in measures being kindled and in measures going out.
My hypothesis is not so much that the court is the natural expression of popular justice, but rather that its historical function is to ensnare it, to control it and strangle it, by re-inscribing it within institutions which are typical of a state apparatus.
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