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What the Fathers say
Eastern Fathers
Cyril of Alexandria
Now the soul is more excellent than food, and the body than clothing. Therefore He adds, The life is more than meat, &c. As if He said, "God who has implanted that which is greater, how will He not give that which is less?" Let not our attention then be stayed upon trifling things, nor our understanding serve to seek for food and raiment, but rather think on whatever saves the soul, and raises it to the kingdom of heaven.
Theophylact of Ohrid
Little by little the Lord ascends to the teaching on the highest perfection. Note the order. He taught to guard against covetousness and added the parable of the rich man as proof that he who desires very much is foolish. Extending the teaching further, He does not allow us to be anxious even about necessities. …
Clement of Alexandria
Wherefore neither are we to provide for ourselves costly clothing any more than variety of food. The Lord Himself, therefore, dividing His precepts into what relates to the body, the soul, and thirdly, external things, counsels us to provide external things on account of the body; and manages the body by the soul, and disciplines the soul, saying, "Take no thought for your life what ye shall eat; nor yet for your body, what ye shall put on; for the life is more than meat, and the body more than raiment."
Western Saints
Ambrose of Milan
Now nothing is more likely to produce conviction in believers that God can give us all things, than the fact, that the ethereal spirit perpetuates the vital union of the soul and body in close fellowship, without our exertion, and the healthgiving use of food does not fail until the last day of death has arrived. …
Bede
And he said to his disciples: Therefore I say to you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat, nor about your body, what you will wear. When he says, Therefore I say, he looks back to the previous, that is, I forbid the anxiety of temporal things, so that you are not convicted with the world's rich for treasuring up for yourselves. …
Bonaventure
And he said to his disciples, etc. Here now for the third time he calls back from the anxiety of avarice by an irrefragable argument, which is taken from a threefold genus of creature: first, from the rational creature; second, from the sensible creature, at: Consider the ravens; third, from the vegetative creature, at: Consider the lilies of the field. …
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