{"id":302,"date":"2026-03-22T17:33:43","date_gmt":"2026-03-22T17:33:43","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pilgrims.org.uk\/wp\/?p=302"},"modified":"2026-03-22T17:33:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-22T17:33:43","slug":"one-bread-one-body","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pilgrims.org.uk\/wp\/2026\/03\/22\/one-bread-one-body\/","title":{"rendered":"One bread, one body"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><strong>Common Ground Song 98 \u2018One Bread, One Body\u2019<br><\/strong>Words\/Music: John B Foley \u00a9 OCP Publications<br>YouTube recording: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WHAu3fLF7NI\">https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WHAu3fLF7NI<\/a>\u00a0<br>Featured image: \u00a9 pxhere.com<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Another Sunday, another Communion song. This one comes from the USA, and the Roman Catholic tradition. Although which country and tradition it arose from is actually irrelevant, as the words and intention of the song make clear. Verse one: \u2018Gentile or Jew, servant or free, woman or man no more\u2019; and also in the chorus: \u2018we, though many, throughout the earth, we are one body in this one Lord\u2019. &nbsp;&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">On any one day, at any time, there will be Christians gathering (whatever name they give to their local church) to break bread together and make the same declaration (in whatever language they know): \u201cwe, being many, are one body, because we all share in the one bread\u201d. It is easy to think of that just referring to the ten people gathered round a table, or a hundred forming a line to receive from one priest, or at some major cathedral service perhaps a thousand gathered from around the Diocese to receive from one of may priests. But in fact it refers to everyone who now believes, and everyone in past centuries who has believed, in the death of Jesus to \u2018make us one body\u2019.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The final verse gives us another image, that of grain being scattered, before the crop grows, is harvested and made into a single loaf, which again is broken, this time to be shared among us. There will be times of scattering, when it seems unity is broken for whatever reason, but it is always God\u2019s intention to bring back what has been scattered. We see that in reconciliation between estranged people in a local community or a single family, but also in the broad sweep of Biblical history where the people of God are repeatedly scattered (from Babel, or from Israel and Judah, or in the great diaspora from Roman times onwards) yet ultimately are, or will be, reunited in the Promised Land.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Christians do not place this emphasis on Israel (the land), but we have experienced the same repeated scattering as politics and theology have driven a wedge between us, time and again. &nbsp;Yet God\u2019s intention is the same: to reunite us, in small ways every time we come to the Communion table, and ultimately when Jesus Christ returns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Common Ground Song 98 \u2018One Bread, One Body\u2019Words\/Music: John B Foley \u00a9 OCP PublicationsYouTube recording: https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=WHAu3fLF7NI\u00a0Featured image: \u00a9 pxhere.com Another Sunday, another Communion song. This one comes from the USA, and the Roman Catholic tradition. Although which country and tradition it arose from is actually irrelevant, as the words and intention of the song make [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":303,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[71],"tags":[94,119],"class_list":["post-302","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-common-ground","tag-holy-communion","tag-unity"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pilgrims.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pilgrims.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pilgrims.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrims.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrims.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=302"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrims.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":304,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrims.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/302\/revisions\/304"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrims.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/303"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pilgrims.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=302"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrims.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=302"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pilgrims.org.uk\/wp\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=302"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}