non-Catholic table blessing

[Blackbog]

Note that I said non-Catholic, not un-Catholic…

Anyway, there is a table blessing my Baptist grandfather always says, and I actually prefer it to the traditional Catholic table blessing of “Bless us, O Lord, and these your “thy”] gifts which we are about to receive from your bounty.” The blessing my grandfather uses is to the effect of “Lord, bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies, and our bodies to your “thy”] service.”

I suspect the specifics of a table blessing are not incredibly important, but I wanted to run it by this forum to get some opinions. It is important to me because I would like to one day raise children and bless family meals in a consistent manner.

 

[Loren_1of6]

There are lots and lots of table blessings out there. I like to mix them up, but my husband prefers that we stay consistent.

When we have non-Catholics over, we say:
God is great. God is good.
Let us thank Him for our food.
By His hands we all are fed.
Thank You, Lord, for our daily bread.

At an old parish, we used to sing a blessing to the tune of Edelweiss (from The Sound of Music):
Bless our friends,
Bless our food,
Come, O Lord, and sit with us.
Make our talk
Glow with peace.
Come with Your love to surround us.
Friendship and peace,
May they bloom and grow,
Bloom and grow forever.
Bless our friends.
Bless our food.
Bless our homeland forever.

When I was growing up, my dad would lead the prayer. He would start with “Lord bless this home…” and we would repeat that. Then he would start adding things one at a time and we would repeat them: “this food…this family…our friends…” until he ran out of things to be blessed.

When our kids were smaller, we let them take turns leading the prayer. Those were always interesting. Our then three-year-old used to say “Thank you the bears drink the Coke.” It took us a while to connect this blessing to the cola commercial with polar bears.

 

[LilyM]

When our kids were smaller, we let them take turns leading the prayer. Those were always interesting. Our then three-year-old used to say “Thank you the bears drink the Coke.” It took us a while to connect this blessing to the cola commercial with polar bears.

Hehe … kids are so cute.

Our pre-meal prayers are usually off-the-cuff, perhaps involving an Our Father or a Glory Be first (the length of the prayer depending on how hungry we are )

 

[Lil_M]

This is an interesting thread. I don’t know the blessing the OP was referring to, as I have done the “Bless us O Lord” at various speeds (my sister could race through it!) my whole life. My fiance was raised Protestant (now converting ) and I enjoyed their “freelance” graces much more actually. When we start our own family I hope to have a combination of the two.

 

[Mattapoisett64]

Note that I said non-Catholic, not un-Catholic…

Anyway, there is a table blessing my Baptist grandfather always says, and I actually prefer it to the traditional Catholic table blessing of “Bless us, O Lord, and these your “thy”] gifts which we are about to receive from your bounty.” The blessing my grandfather uses is to the effect of “Lord, bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies, and our bodies to your “thy”] service.”

I suspect the specifics of a table blessing are not incredibly important, but I wanted to run it by this forum to get some opinions. It is important to me because I would like to one day raise children and bless family meals in a consistent manner.

My late Presbyterian father-in-law used a free-form blessing that ended with something similar to the words you used: “Bless this food to our use, and we to Thy continuing service, Amen.”

 

[lak611]

Note that I said non-Catholic, not un-Catholic…

Anyway, there is a table blessing my Baptist grandfather always says, and I actually prefer it to the traditional Catholic table blessing of “Bless us, O Lord, and these your “thy”] gifts which we are about to receive from your bounty.” The blessing my grandfather uses is to the effect of “Lord, bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies, and our bodies to your “thy”] service.”

I suspect the specifics of a table blessing are not incredibly important, but I wanted to run it by this forum to get some opinions. It is important to me because I would like to one day raise children and bless family meals in a consistent manner.

I like Protestant table blessings better myself because they are usually done in their own words. I usually like to pray in my own words rather than using a structured prayer, even though I am a Catholic. I just like spontaneity.

 

[4HisChurch]

We learned this one from an Anglican priest and we like it:

Bless this food to our use
*and us to Thy service. *
*Help us be ever mindful *
*of the needs of others. *
In Christ’s holy Name
*we pray. *
*~Amen *

 

[Orionthehunter]

OP, I don’t understand your reluctance to use the traditional Catholic table blessing. While on special occassions, our family expands on the traditional prayer with a preamble lead by a single person but it concludes with the traditional prayer said aloud by all.

I appreciate that too much rote prayer can be a negative in some ways. But too little rote prayer denies one to the “sound” of the cadence or rhythm of Catholic prayer. Whether it be a large group praying the rosary together, the responses in the Mass, or a family saying grace together, one gets a feeling of the universality and unity of the Body of Christ.

Additionally, the traditional table prayer covers a lot of good bases that need to be covered throughout the day.

• “Bless us O Lord” (He is the source of Blessings not us)
• “From thy bounty” (not ours but God’s again reinforces our place in this world)
• “Through Christ our Lord” (acknowledgement of who is our Savior)

Finally, the Church has suffered these past decades as Catholics tried to assimiliate by putting in a closet our Catholic identity. For instance, my grandparents had a crucifix in every room. My mother’s attempt to be hospitable replaced the crucifix with a cross without the corpus. Today, she acknowledges that was a mistake. And, this “hiding” our Catholicism results in us being poor evangalists. We are who we are. And if we appear to be ashamed of it, how can we expect anyone to want to join us?

 

[Sr_Sally]

Note that I said non-Catholic, not un-Catholic…

Anyway, there is a table blessing my Baptist grandfather always says, and I actually prefer it to the traditional Catholic table blessing of “Bless us, O Lord, and these your “thy”] gifts which we are about to receive from your bounty.” The blessing my grandfather uses is to the effect of “Lord, bless this food to the nourishment of our bodies, and our bodies to your “thy”] service.”

I suspect the specifics of a table blessing are not incredibly important, but I wanted to run it by this forum to get some opinions. It is important to me because I would like to one day raise children and bless family meals in a consistent manner.

Laughing because I have always loved the prayer my non-Catholic dh grew up saying and he usually says the traditional Catholic one!

However, it is nice when we have family gatherings on my side of the family to have everyone join into the prayer after the first word.

So my advice to you would be to go ahead and use your grandfather’s prayer AND the more traditional one. You wouldn’t need a schedule --just use whichever one you feel like. If you have 2 meals together as a family (breakfast and dinner) that’s a lot of table blessings!

 

[StephanieC]

OP, I don’t understand your reluctance to use the traditional Catholic table blessing. While on special occassions, our family expands on the traditional prayer with a preamble lead by a single person but it concludes with the traditional prayer said aloud by all.

I appreciate that too much rote prayer can be a negative in some ways. But too little rote prayer denies one to the “sound” of the cadence or rhythm of Catholic prayer. Whether it be a large group praying the rosary together, the responses in the Mass, or a family saying grace together, one gets a feeling of the universality and unity of the Body of Christ.

Additionally, the traditional table prayer covers a lot of good bases that need to be covered throughout the day.

• “Bless us O Lord” (He is the source of Blessings not us)
• “From thy bounty” (not ours but God’s again reinforces our place in this world)
• “Through Christ our Lord” (acknowledgement of who is our Savior)
  Finally, the Church has suffered these past decades as Catholics tried to assimiliate by putting in a closet our Catholic identity. For instance, my grandparents had a crucifix in every room. My mother’s attempt to be hospitable replaced the crucifix with a cross without the corpus. Today, she acknowledges that was a mistake. And, this “hiding” our Catholicism results in us being poor evangalists. We are who we are. And if we appear to be ashamed of it, how can we expect anyone to want to join us?

Great post, some good points!

Also, re: too little rote prayers: if little ones are involved, the rote memorization is important while they’re learning to talk. The “off the cuff” prayers may make sense to us adults, but leave the toddlers behind.

I like the idea of using one rote prayer specific to each meal.

 

[DaveBj]

Good thread.

I still like the table grace that my Pentecostal mother brought with her: “Dear Lord, give us thankful hearts for these and all Your blessings, we ask for Christ’s sake. Amen.” Later on I added, “…and bless the hands that prepared it.” If the meal was leftovers, then I would add, “…and bless the hands that repaired it.”

On a related note, our parish is trying to get us more interested in prayer, and to that end cards were passed out noting times to pray. One of those times was grace after meals. What do y’all pray after meals?

I really love my food, and most of the time the only thing I can think of to pray is “Dear Lord, that was good! Thank You for that food! And thank You for the senses that make it so wonderful. And thank You for the skill You gave me to make it.”



DaveBj