Journal

Tuesday 2nd Week of Lent (Manna in the Desert)

02 March 2010

After the Israelites had crossed the sea, after the waters had become sweet for those advancing in virtue, after their delightful halt among the springs and palm trees, and after they had drunk from the rock, all the supplies they had brought from Egypt ran out.  And the, when there was nothing left of the foreign Egyptian food with which they had come provided, there poured down from heaven food that was both varied and all of one kind.  In appearance it was all of one kind, but in flavour it was varied and suited to every taste.

The lesson this teaches us is that we must purge ourselves of everything associated with the foreign Egyptian way of life, emptying out of the sack of our soul all the tainted food prepared by the Egyptians, in order to receive within ourselves in purity of soul the food that comes down from heaven.  No seed sown in the earth produced this food for us.  This bread came down from heaven already prepared and was found lying on the ground.

You will understand I am sure what the real food is that this episode foreshadows, and that the bread that comes down from heaven is not something unsubstantial.  If it were, how could our bodies be nourished by it?  If it is not unsubstantial, it must have a bodily nature, but the bodily nature of this bread was not produced by ploughing the earth and sowing seed.  The earth remained unbroken and yet was found covered with this divine nourishment shared in by the hungry, a miracle preparing our minds for the mystery of the Virgin birth.

This bread produced without labour is also the Word, which possesses such diversity that it can adapt itself to the needs of all who feed on it.  Besides being bread it can become milk, meat, vegetables whatever suits and is pleasing to those receiving teaching of the divine apostle Paul who himself offers us such nourishment, so adapting his words as to give a solid diet of meat to the most advanced, vegetables to the less strong, and milk to beginners.

From the writings of Saint Gregory of Nyssa
(Theoria 2, 137-140: SC Ibis, 72-73)

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