Grace Before Meals

Full Explanation

The grace before meals is one of the shortest prayers in Catholic life and one of the most used. In English: Bless us, O Lord, and these thy gifts, which we are about to receive from thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen. It is said after the sign of the cross, at table, before eating. What the words are doing is worth a second of attention, because they are more precise than their familiarity suggests. The blessing asked for is on us and on the gifts, in that order. And the gifts are described as coming from thy bounty — not earned, not deserved, given. It is a prayer about receiving, said at the one moment of the day when receiving is unavoidable and obvious. There is a second half that far fewer people know. The grace after meals runs: We give thee thanks, almighty God, for all thy benefits, who livest and reignest, world without end. Amen. In many households it is followed by a prayer for the dead — May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace — which is an old and startlingly good custom: you have just been fed, and the next thought is of those who no longer eat. Both prayers come from the Roman Ritual and both have Latin forms still in use. The Latin before is Benedic, Domine, nos et haec tua dona, quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi, per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen. After: Agimus tibi gratias, omnipotens Deus, pro universis beneficiis tuis, qui vivis et regnas in saecula saeculorum. Amen. As for obligation: there is none. No precept of the Church requires grace at meals. It is a custom, and the Church encourages it in the strongest terms she uses for things she is not commanding. Which means the reason to keep it is the reason it survived — not that you must, but that a household which stops for four seconds before eating is a different household from one that does not.