Saying grace in public?

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St.Eric

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Do you say grace in public, i.e., at a resturant, park, cafeteria, etc. ? If you are Catholic, do you also cross yourself before and after?

Does it make you feel uneasy to do this or to see others doing this?

I admit, I don’t do it often and when I do I feel uneasy. Something I need to work on!
 
Yes, I cross myself and pray out loud. As I get older the less I seem to care about the opinon of others, and so I just pray as I always do and let people think what they want. I figure it can’t do them any harm and they may take courage from my example.
 
Admittedly I don’t usually do it, but it’s not really because of embarrasment, after all I walk down the street carrying a rosary from time to time. As a fairly recent revert, it just doesn’t occur to me a lot of the time. When I do I dont’ pray out loud, simply cross myself.
 
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Della:
Yes, I cross myself and pray out loud. As I get older the less I seem to care about the opinon of others, and so I just pray as I always do and let people think what they want. I figure it can’t do them any harm and they may take courage from my example.
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I wish I was where you are Della. I seldom make a visible crossing but just discretely use my thumb to cross my lips and say grace privately to myself.

The reason I do it w/o notice is I struggle w/ the sin of Pride. I’m still not yet able to put on that sack cloth w/o feeling like I’m being sanctimonious. I hope to get where you are someday.
 
Perhaps this will help get past that pride. We were eating with friends in a very busy restaurant. We prayed (all making the Sign of the Cross). During the meal, a person who was working clearing tables came up to my friend. In very broken English, the worker said “Catholic” while making the Sign of the Cross.

Turns out this woman had been in the country a couple of months, and did not know how to find the Catholic Church, and did not know anyone to ask. When she saw us pray, she knew we were Catholic. We were able to get her in touch with our Parish, and tell her what time there was a Mass in her language!

This is was a very big, very busy restaurant. She had worked there for a few weeks - how many other Catholics could have helped her out? I will never ever again be ashamed to cross myself in a restaurant.
 
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Orionthehunter:
I wish I was where you are Della. I seldom make a visible crossing but just discretely use my thumb to cross my lips and say grace privately to myself.

The reason I do it w/o notice is I struggle w/ the sin of Pride. I’m still not yet able to put on that sack cloth w/o feeling like I’m being sanctimonious. I hope to get where you are someday.
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Ah, but me lad, tis but the deevil whisper’n in yer ear! 😉

Just do it and don’t think about it. That’s all it takes, truly. Let Jesus help you to forget yourself, and be open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
 
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kage_ar:
Perhaps this will help get past that pride. We were eating with friends in a very busy restaurant. We prayed (all making the Sign of the Cross). During the meal, a person who was working clearing tables came up to my friend. In very broken English, the worker said “Catholic” while making the Sign of the Cross.

Turns out this woman had been in the country a couple of months, and did not know how to find the Catholic Church, and did not know anyone to ask. When she saw us pray, she knew we were Catholic. We were able to get her in touch with our Parish, and tell her what time there was a Mass in her language!

This is was a very big, very busy restaurant. She had worked there for a few weeks - how many other Catholics could have helped her out? I will never ever again be ashamed to cross myself in a restaurant.
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Kage,
That is awesome! I had never even thought of that. Nice point to ponder.
 
The innocence of children is truly great. Often it is my almost 4 year old son who automatically starts to cross himself and say grace when the food arrives to the table at a resturant. He even does it in the backseat of the car if we get a meal at a drive-thru.

🙂
 
I used to not out of fear of offending others, but, because of our culture’s assault on faith, I make a point of doing so. It’s time to stand up and be counted.
 
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St.Eric:
The innocence of children is truly great. Often it is my almost 4 year old son who automatically starts to cross himself and say grace when the food arrives to the table at a resturant. He even does it in the backseat of the car if we get a meal at a drive-thru.

🙂
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Very cute and this shows how well you are teaching your very small child in the faith. Good for you and there will be many blessings upon you and your family for this. God has made you a good and faithful parent and this childhood love of God will never leave your child. Jesus must love you all very much. 🙂
 
I always say grace wherever I am eating, home, friends houses, cafe , restaurant etc. I don’t worry about it or even think about it, it is second nature to do it…once or twice I have tucked in to dinner and forgotten to say grace and had to apologise to God and say grace after a couple of mouth fulls! 🙂
 
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blessedstar:
Very cute and this shows how well you are teaching your very small child in the faith. Good for you and there will be many blessings upon you and your family for this. God has made you a good and faithful parent and this childhood love of God will never leave your child. Jesus must love you all very much. 🙂
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Thank you very much for the kind words. I am very proud of him. At not even 4 years old he can say the “Our Father” “Glory Be” and “Hail Mary” by himself. 🙂 Sorry to run off topic but I couldn’t resist. Thanks again for the kind words. God Bless! 🙂
 
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St.Eric:
Thank you very much for the kind words. I am very proud of him. At not even 4 years old he can say the “Our Father” “Glory Be” and “Hail Mary” by himself. 🙂 Sorry to run off topic but I couldn’t resist. Thanks again for the kind words. God Bless! 🙂
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Don’t apologise! 🙂 This thread is about not being afraid to pray in public and your child is an example and shining light to all Catholics and that is because you are a good Catholic parent and proud you should be and you should offer thanks to God for your faith, your families faith and the faith of your child which at his age is such a pure faith, the Holy Trinity resides perfectly in his soul because at his age he is without sin, his prayers are in full grace and music to the ears of Jesus. Place your hand very often over your sons heart and thank God, who dwells perfectly within him, for the gift of your son. If only all Catholic parents were like you! By the way, I’d also recommend teaching your son to pray to his Guardian Angel, this will certainly keep your son with the Lord throughout his life.

God love you, Jesus must love you a great deal, you have embraced His grace and you all must be a great consolation to His Sacred Heart when most of the world is indifferent to Him 🙂
 
Several years ago an attorney who works with Pro-Life came to speak at our parish (apologize, I do not remember his name) had a cute story…they had a large family and one day at a restaurant he announced to his wife they were going to start saying grace from now on at restaurants and his wife got these huge eyes and said, “but dear, what will people think?” The man looked at his wife and said…“THEY ARE GOING TO THINK WE ARE PRAYING!” I laughed so hard and announced to my family we would say grace in restaurants too! And we have ever since, with no complaints from the other patrons!
 
A priest told me that I can make a smaller cross when I pray before meals. 🙂
 
I usually make the sign of the cross if I pray in public. I don’t do it to show off either. I forget to pray before meals most of the time though.:o
 
Hmm, on the one hand you want to witness, and on the other hand there’s that thing Jesus said about ‘when you pray, do it in private’…

I usually make the sign of the cross discreetly and pray silently.
 
I always cross myself and silently say grace if it’s in a group (sometimes leaving out the crossing). Most people don’t have a beef with it; my best friend always says it weirds him out. It made me uneasy when I started doing it, but now I’m fine with it.
 
I say grace quietly (but with moving lips) but I make a large, visible sign of the Cross.

If people are offended by my being Catholic, so be it. It’s time to strike back.
 
Yes, we have prayed at home and in public as a family for several years now. It was uncomfortable at first, but now it is so automatic and natural, we wonder why we ever stresed about it.

As far as the pride thing goes, while Jesus spoke against making a big deal about praying in public (standing on corners, blowing trumpets, etc), he obviously didn’t mean for this to extend to giving simple–but public–thanks for food. We see several times how he would “give thanks” before breaking bread.

In all the years we have been making the sign of the cross and saying grace in public, we have had nothing but positive reaction from others. To date, no one has stood up on their chair to denounce us as Catholics. 😉 In fact, people (sometimes even children and non-Catholics, like Mormons) often come over to our table and tell us how beautiful it is to see a family pray together. Just a couple of weeks ago, we were in a Korean restaurant. The waiter respectfully bowed his head and waited as we said grace and told us he was Catholic, but was looking for a parish. We told him about ours. You never know how God will use you. 🙂
 
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