Thought for the week: Jesus - the real 'strength of man'

However, an improved pay offer has led to the suspension of the proposed industrial action, much to the relief of management and consumers.

Loaves of Hovis are stacked high in almost all our supermarkets and stores, alongside Brennans, Gallaghers and Kingsmills products. Most of those names are self-explanatory but the name ‘Hovis’ is intriguing. It’s origin lies in the nineteenth century.

In Macclesfield in 1886 Richard ‘Stoney’ Smith found a way of milling by which he was able to separate the wheatgerm from the flour, without losing any of the vitamins and minerals contained in the wheatgerm. The process was then marketed under the snappy title of ‘Smith’s Patent Process Germ Flour’.

Smith realised that a more user-friendly name was required and in 1890 a national competition was organised, with the tempting offer of a £25 prize for the person whose suggestion was approved.

Step in one Herbert Grime, a retired schoolmaster. His suggestion was ‘Hovis’ being a combination of two Latin words ‘Hominis Vis’ which means ‘Strength of Man’.

In John’s gospel we read of an incident where Jesus fed five thousand hungry folk with a boy’s meagre lunch of five barley loaves and two small fish. The gospel writer saw the event as a sign of all that Jesus does for the seeking soul. Jesus himself said: ‘I am the Bread of Life. He who comes to me will never go hungry’(John 6; 35).

Bread left on the shelf will soon grow stale and mouldy. It needs to be digested to perform its nourishing work. Likewise, Jesus needs to be taken into our inmost being. He must enter into us as does the food we eat and drink.

The poet Matthew Arnold once met an old college friend who had devoted himself to work among the slums of London’s Bethnal Green, and asked, ‘Ill and o’erworked, how fare you in this scene?’

The question elicited a positive response: ‘Bravely!’ said he; ‘For I of late have been much cheered with thoughts of Christ the living bread’. He is truly ‘the strength of man’.