Grace Before Meals

A traditional Catholic prayer

Bless us, O Lord, and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

In Latin

Benedic, Domine, nos et haec tua dona, quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen.

Where it comes from

A young, beardless Christ sits at a laid table and stretches His hand out over the bread; one disciple grips the arms of his chair to rise, the other flings his arms wide, and the innkeeper stands by in his cap, not yet understanding. Saint Luke says, below, that they knew Him when He took bread and blessed it: the stranger was known by His grace at table. In Apostolic times Saint Paul counselled the faithful: “Whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do,” do all to the glory of God, and the plate came under the same law as the altar. Clement of Alexandria wrote that before taking nourishment “it is fitting to praise the Creator of all things,” and Tertullian: “We do not recline until we have prayed to God.” Graces survive in a fourth-century treatise attributed without foundation to Saint Athanasius and in the Gelasian and Bobbio Sacramentaries, and the Roman forms, built from the Psalms, are monastic in origin. Every grace we say is said at that table, in the breath before the bread is broken.

Henri Leclercq, “Grace at Meals”, The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 6 (1909): newadvent.org

³⁰And it came to pass, whilst he was at table with them, he took bread and blessed and brake and gave to them. ³¹And their eyes were opened: and they knew him. And he vanished out of their sight.

¹⁵The eyes of all hope in thee, O Lord: and thou givest them meat in due season. ¹⁶Thou openest thy hand, and fillest with blessing every living creature.

Luke 24:30–31 · Psalms 144:15–16, Douay-Rheims (Challoner)

More in painting

The traditional prayers  ·  The Rosary