Bless Us, O Lord

One of our best-loved and yet often neglected traditions as Catholics is that of praying before and after we eat.  We call this prayer Grace Before (or After) Meals.  The word grace, as applied to prayer over food, means “thanksgiving” (from the Latin gratiarum actio and the Italian grazie, “thanks”).  In English, reciting such a prayer is referred to as “saying grace.”  As well as fulfilling our duty of giving thanks to God for the food and drink we are about to receive, the Grace imparts a blessing which sanctifies the meal.  Thus, the priest or father of the family makes the Sign of the Cross over the food with his right hand as he says the prayer.

That the early Christians prayed before and after meals is indisputable, evidenced by the writings of nearly all the Church Fathers.  Tertullian, for example, noted that “we do not recline at a banquet before prayer be first tasted—in like manner prayer puts an end to the feast” (On Prayer 25).

In the religious orders, naturally the custom of grace was much insisted upon.  A special section is assigned to it in Chapter 43 of the Rule of St. Benedict.  The early monastic rules in fact generally required that each dish brought to table should be separately blessed before it was set before the community.

Great importance was attached to the proper learning of the grace by children.  Most educational foundations, like the English public schools and the colleges at the universities, had special forms of grace prescribed for them, some of which are maintained to the present day, and are even recited still in Latin.  The full Grace provided by the Church is contained in the Roman Breviary under the heading Benedictio Mensæ.  Grace begins with the acclamation Benedicite, which is spoken by the officiant and repeated by all present.  The form for the evening meal, both before and after, varies slightly from that assigned for the midday meal, and during the octaves of certain greater festivals special verses are substituted for those in ordinary use.

The “Grace Before and After Meals” commonly found in the catechisms for children and used by the laity consists substantially of a translation of two short prayers taken from the longer Latin grace, the blessing spoken before the meal and the thanksgiving afterwards.  Thus, before meals, we say “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.”

Something that often goes unnoticed is that we not only ask God to bless what we’re about to receive, but to bless us too. “Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts…”  When religious communities—or in our case, families—come together at mealtime, we collectively ask God to pour his blessings upon all present, both individually and as a community.  Grace Before Meals thereby becomes a very fruitful way of earning graces for all our endeavors, not least of which is the fraternal charity that must be maintained between us, something that is often so hard to do.  When we pray Grace together, we should be conscious of our duty to love our neighbor, and with the “Bless us, O Lord” ask God to shower his graces on all present.  God will answer our prayers, and our family life will be protected and strengthened by this simple act of “saying Grace.”  It’s why mealtime should be given a high priority in our daily schedule.  It brings the family together for the spiritual blessings our prayer of Grace invokes, and also provides an opportunity for us to interact in a charitable and civilized manner towards each other.  If nothing else, it should at least be included in our Sunday program, with intelligent conversation, coupled with a ban on TV and smartphones from the meal.

 

“Without thy presence, nought, O Lord is sweet,

No pleasure to our lips can aught supply,

Whether ‘tis wine we drink or food we eat,

Till Grace divine and Faith shall sanctify.”