Praying before eating

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Do you pray before eating?

How about if you’re invited somewhere and they don’t usually pray?
Or at a restaurant?

Kathrin
 
Yes, with the sign of the cross, Bless us oh Lord… s.o.c. again. Same elsewhere. Tim
 
My family prays before our meals whether at home or in a restaraunt. When invited over someone else’s, we only pray out loud if that is their custom. Otherwise, we pray silently on our own.
 
TOP said:
Yes, with the sign of the cross, Bless us oh Lord… s.o.c. again. Same elsewhere. Tim
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ditto this. I am not ashamed in restaurants. No one is paring attention to me anyways.
 
Yes, I do.
When I was younger, I remembered I also thanked God after eating too. I have no idea why I left this part out when I grow older. I try to get back to this after.

I make a sign of Cross in a restaurant and do a little prayer before eating.
 
Most of the time I remember to pray before eating. I don’t always do it at a restaurant, though. I hate it when I do forget.
 
The traditional Catholic prayer is okay, but I don’t personally find it enough…

This is my prayer:

Dear Heaven Father, thank you for this food. May it nourish my body and give me strength. I praise you for who you are, what you’ve done, and what you’re doing. Lord, have mercy on me a wretched sinner, and guide me according to your holy will.

I think of all those who are hungry, in need of your loving and merciful touch. Send forth thy Holy Spirit. Renew the face of the earth. And may your Church be one, as your divine Son prayed for. It’s through Him I pray, in the power of the Holy Spirit, for the glory of thy name. In Jesus name I humbly pray. Amen.

(My goal here is just to give some ideas/suggestions 😉 May everything we do be an act of sincere love and worship to Him.)

God Bless,
JB
 
TOP said:
Yes, with the sign of the cross, Bless us oh Lord… s.o.c. again. Same elsewhere. Tim
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Same thing here. Except at someone’s house who doesn’t instigate it. But usually, my live-in “morality police” a.k.a. the 5 year old inquires of the head of whatever house we’re in why he isn’t praying and that shames a blessing into taking place. Otherwise, silent blessing.

It’s fun to do it at restaurants. Sometimes you see other people watching and doing that silent, “Dang! I wish I’d remembered to do that too!” thing going on. I know I’ve done it!

C
 
Kathrin said:
Do you pray before eating?

How about if you’re invited somewhere and they don’t usually pray?
Or at a restaurant?

Kathrin
Click to expand...
Whether alone or with family or friends I pray before eating, making the sign of the cross. Same in a restaurant.

If I am with someone who does not do this, then I pray silently.
 
I’ll admit I don’t pray before a light snack, but I do before every meal regardless of where that meal takes place. Whether at my own table, a friend’s table or a resturant’s table, I say grace and use the SOC. Since God is with me wherever I eat, whether it’s standard for the people there to pray before meals or not, I feel it’s only right to thank Him for the meal.
 
TOP said:
Yes, with the sign of the cross, Bless us oh Lord… s.o.c. again. Same elsewhere. Tim
Click to expand...
Same here…
funny story… we were visiting my sister at her home. We had been out all day doing stuff with the kids so we decided to order pizza for dinner. It was me, my 3 kids, my fiance(now dh), his daughter, my sister and her husband and 2 kids… so when the pizza got there, my sister took it to the kitchen and we both called the kids. We got out the paper plates and started dishing out. My kids, my step dd and dh all took our plates and set them down and waited. My sister asked what they were waiting for and instructed them to go back to where they were and eat. My kids piped up that they were waiting for prayers… My confused sister looks at me and asks, “We pray for pizza?” to which I replied, “We pray for pizza!!!” The kids got such a kick out of it, now they will randomly ask, “We pray for pizza?” just to make everybody laugh!

We always pray no matter where… once in McDonalds we had just gotten our food and said our prayers when the man at the booth in front of ours got up and came over to us and thanked us for reminding him and his family to pray. When he first came over I thought he was going to complain about us praying in public, it was a pleasant surprise.

Another time we were in Arby’s and as usual we prayed before we ate. There was a man and his family that kept looking at us. It was just a little uncomfortable when his wife turned to look at us too. I was quizzing my kids on the different mysteries… “Who can name the glorious mysteries???” etc. When the man got up, went out to his truck and came back in the restaurant with 5 tee shirts he had been selling down in Mexico and he gave them to us. He told us it was beautiful to hear a family pray and talk about God together.

We don’t seek attention, but if it reminds others to pray, then more praise to God!!! These are just my experiences with the family.

When I go on business lunches, we all pray together. I was at lunch with a total of 3 Catholics, 1 Christian and 2 atheists, they bowed their heads and quietly waited while the Catholics and Christian finished praying before they ate. On holy days of obligation our office all goes to mass together, all of the Catholics anyway. The CEO, his wife, our president, the pilot, and me. We met our husbands and wives at mass. After mass we go to lunch together. The first time our president came with he asked what the rule is in the US for eating after the Eucharist…in Japan it is 3 hours, so I told him it was ok to eat after mass.
 
Where I do have a bit of a problem is when I am eating with family members who don’t usually pray before their meals. For example, I eat with my parents and my brother about once a week, a little family gathering. I have mentioned praying before, and they all know I go to church and am generally very religious.
And I want to be a good example for them! I want to bring the people around me closer to God. Sometimes it’s a tough call though - making a show of myself praying might rather have the opposite effect.

Kathrin
 
Kathrin said:
Sometimes it’s a tough call though - making a show of myself praying might rather have the opposite effect.

Kathrin
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The main fear of what others might think of us stops us doing what we know it is the right thing to do. Some people might say “Thanks to me for I am bringing the food to the table”; we say “Thanks to God”.

If we say thanks to God with a sincere heart, then let it be done - I don’t see any harming to others for spending 10 seconds praising God before eating.
 
Kathrin said:
Where I do have a bit of a problem is when I am eating with family members who don’t usually pray before their meals. For example, I eat with my parents and my brother about once a week, a little family gathering. I have mentioned praying before, and they all know I go to church and am generally very religious.
And I want to be a good example for them! I want to bring the people around me closer to God. Sometimes it’s a tough call though - making a show of myself praying might rather have the opposite effect.

Kathrin
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My sisters family once ate with us. She commented on how my youngest knew the prayer. This lead to me telling her about my 9 y.o. and the Rosary. She said she needed to learn it. I sent her a Rosary and booklets on how to say the Rosary and Divine Mercy chaplet. The Lord provides a way! Tim
 
Dorothy said:
Whether alone or with family or friends I pray before eating, making the sign of the cross. Same in a restaurant.

If I am with someone who does not do this, then I pray silently.
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Yep - us too.

~Liza
 
I think it can be a great witness, as other posters have said. We always pray as a family before meals, no matter where we are.
 
Always. At resturants, in other people’s homes, everywhere. At business lunches, I pray silently. But with my head bowed, my co-workers usually know what I am up to. Even among my co-workers, I haven’t been around too many hard-core atheists or any other who would object to prayers before meals.
 
I was raised in a non-religious home. My family of origin has never prayed before meals, but if I am at one of their homes, I do so silently and discreetly. If by chance they come to my home for a meal, I sing a grace, and for some reason they don’t find this threatening as they might if I led a spoken prayer (maybe because I sing alot anyway). If I’m in public or at work, I do the silent & discreet prayer as well, unless I forget.

I think I found my grace-song in a Lutheran hymnal, but I’m not sure. It goes to the tune of “Old Hundredth” or “Praise God From Whom All Blessings Flow.” It goes:

“Be present at our table, Lord,
be here and everywhere adored,
thy creatures bless and grant that we
may feast in Paradise with Thee.”
 
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