At one of the great yearly festivals of the Jewish Church, the Feast of Harvest, two loaves, the first fruits of the harvest of the year, made of the finest wheat flour, were presented before God as a sample or specimen of the whole harvest, and were waved by him towards the four quarters of the globe, as a solemn acknowledgment that all blessings in nature and providence, throughout the wide earth, come from Him. It was on this same festival day, above eighteen hundred years since, that the first fruits of the harvest of souls, redeemed by the precious death of Christ, were presented before God in the form of about three thousand converts to the faith as it is in Jesus. Like the two loaves these converts were a sample of what the grace of God could produce out of poor simple earth, out of fallen humanity. They were a blessed specimen of the power of God, the Holy Ghost, and of the grace of the gospel. They were, we are told, persevering in the doctrine of the apostles, and in the communication of the breaking of bread (Holy Communion) and prayers. They shew us what professed Catholics should be in all the earth, and what should be our daily life. I beseech you, by the mercy of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, pleasing unto God, your reasonable service. It is the Holy Spirit alone, remember, who can lead, sanctify, strengthen, and daily renew us. He must dwell in us, to make us what we are called to be, the bread of God.
- text taken from Daily Bread - Bring a Few Morning Meditations for the Use of Catholic Christians by Father Richard Waldo Sibthorp