Allegorically (St. Cyril of Alexandria, Catena of the Greek Fathers): the setting of Christ's birth points us to the Eucharist. Since through sin man becomes like the beasts, Christ lies in the trough where animals feed, offering them, not hay, but his own body as life-giving bread.

Fasting of the body is food for the soul.

Joy is more divine than sorrow, for joy is bread and sorrow is medicine.

This supernatural bread and this consecrated chalice are for the health and salvation of mankind.

Health and healing will follow fasting.

The interior joy we feel when we have done a good deed is the nourishment the soul requires.

Make it a part of every day's business to read and meditate on some portion of God's Word. Private means of grace are just as needful every day for our souls as food and clothing are for our bodies.

My husband is Dutch, and his family, when you sat down to eat food at the table, you never left the table until you ate living bread and drank living water. They never left the table until they'd read Scripture together. So morning, lunch, suppertime, Scripture was always read at the table, and then there was prayer to close.

We must keep eating and drinking the Mystery, until one day it dawns on us, in an undefended moment, "My God, I really am what I eat! I also am the Body of Christ.

A man may study because his brain is hungry for knowledge, even Bible knowledge. But he prays because his soul is hungry for God.

The true believer can no more live without prayer, than without food day by day.

Our Lord is the ground from whom our prayer grows and in his love and grace he himself gives us our prayers.