For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.

-1 Corinthians 10:17 NKJV

“The body of Christ is not many bodies but one body. For just as the bread, which consists of many grains, is made one to the point that the separate grains are no longer visible, even though they are still there, so we are joined to each other and to Christ.

But, if we are all nourished by the same source and become one with Him, why do we not also show forth the same love and become one in this respect too?

This was what it was like in ancient times, as we see in Acts (4:32): ‘For the multitude of those who believed were of one heart and one soul.’”

-Saint John Chrysostom

“Thus every soul which receives the bread which comes down from heaven is a house of bread, the bread of Christ, being nourished and having its heart strengthened by the support of the heavenly bread which dwells within it.

Hence Paul says: ‘We are all one bread.’ Every faithful soul is Bethlehem, just as that is called Jerusalem which has the peace and tranquility of the Jerusalem on high which is in heaven.

That is the true bread which, after it was broken into bits, has fed all humanity.”

-Ambrose of Milan

“So, by bread you are instructed as to how you ought to cherish unity. Was that bread made of one grain of wheat?

Were there not, rather, many grains? However, before they became bread, these grains were separate. They were joined together in water after a certain amount of crushing. For unless the grain is ground and moistened with water, it cannot arrive at that form which is called bread.

So, too, you were previously ground, as it were, by the humiliation of your fasting and by the sacrament of exorcism.

Then came the baptism of water.

You were moistened, as it were, so as to arrive at the form of bread.

But without fire, bread does not yet exist.”

-Saint Augustine

“The whole Church is the Church of the penitent.

The whole Church is the Church of the perishing.”

-Ephrem the Syrian