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I was sitting next to a Christain family who said grace in the food court today and I was thinking how rare it is to see a family say grace.
Muslims say Bismillah (roughly - in the name of Allah) before eating and Alhamdulillah (thanks to Allah) after eating.
At one school I went to we sang grace (in Latin) before each meal (I kid you not!!).
Do you say grace or some other form of thanksgiving before you eat? Is it a private moment or does one member of your family lead you?
I often say it to myself, though I am not really religious, but I kind of think I owe thanks to someone for providing me with the food I am lucky enough to eat every day. My girlfriend used to say it all together as a family, holding hands, with one person chosen to speak the prayer. I thought it was really nice and have taken my little routine from them.
We say it at my parents place each fortnight when we are there for dinner - usually its kind of informal but still from the heart, with mum still racing around getting stuff organised and we are all starving! Since i was a kid the "family" grace we say is the same - "Thank you lord for this food we are about to eat and bless it to our bodies in Jesus name" and a chorus of rowdy "Amens" :lol:
Yes, we say a special prayer before each food (they different blessing depends on what food you are eating), and then a prayer afterwards (also depends on what you ate).
There is a more extensive after blessing if you had bread, you normally say it from a little booklet (takes about 4 mins or so).. Funny thing is my son loves to get a booklet and sway back and forth pretending he is doing it - it is very cute! He often does it to each book he picks up also.
No we dont say Grace as such, but when in Bali often before eating meals whilst attending a ceremony or at the temple/s we will sprinkle some food/drink on the ground for our Gods to join us!
since becoming catholic, my hubby has taught me to do the sign of te cross before i eat my meal as a way to say thanks, but his parents make a huge deal about saying 'thanks be to god for the food we are aboutto recieve' if we dont say amen to it and do the sign of the cross, we get yelles at!!
When we sit down together for dinner we say "Thanks God for food" and dig in. We keep it short and informal here...
We sing Grace, or a family member says it - including our 3yr old! We hold hands as I feel this connects our little family - but it's not tradition as we gave thanks in opur childhood homes but not holding hands. I love the idea of praying together but am not sure how to appraoch it, so I say a prayed with my children at night.
my SIL's family (my brother's wife) say grace before each meal - moreso for family dinners. I could say the grace by rote now, I've been hearing it since I was 4 1/2.
I've done a pagan grace once at a family dinner and everybody looked at me strangely - so I've stopped even offering.
I do say a private "thank you", but I also do do a lot of ritual chanting while cooking, I use cooking as ritual putting love and power into the food, this is basically kitchen witchery. Tonight's dinner has been a labour of love, I've been working on it all afternoon - with full-on ritual stuff happening in the kitchen (there is even a salt pentacle on the floor) - well it is beltane/samhain (sthn hemisphere/nrthn hemisphere).
We say it at home occassionally...kinda when the mood stikes...mostly at special meals like Christmas. My DD usually says "For the food we are about to eat may we be thankful" and then all of us say "amen".
I vaguely recall that we used to say "grace" at school when i was in "infants" (years Kinder - year 2) at the start of lunch time. The school was just the local public primary school in South Tamworth... this was in the mid 1970's. It went something like "Thankyou for the food we eat... thankyou for... (forgotten)... thankyou God for everything...Amen". A teacher led the prayer over the loud-seaker. It was quite nice. Everyone sat still, head bowed, even the rowdy kids, said it even if it was kinda robotic LOL We also said the Lord's prayer at assembly sometimes. At some stage in the later years of primary school all this was done away with. A bit sad really. The only prayers i know by heart are the ones we said at school. I'm grateful for that but I do understand the need to separate church and state. My DD learns prayers at her Anglican independant girls' school which i'm grateful we are able to send her to.