Traditional prayer
Grace Before and After Meals
The Blessing Before Meals
Bless us, O Lord! and these Thy gifts, which we are about to receive from Thy bounty, through Christ our Lord. Amen.
Grace After Meals
We give Thee thanks for all Thy benefits, O Almighty God, who livest and reignest forever, and may the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.
About this prayer
The 1885 Baltimore Catechism prints these two short prayers together, each marked with a small cross. The first asks God to bless those at table and the food before them. The second thanks Him for all His benefits, then remembers the dead, so that every table, however small and however crowded, is joined to the communion of saints.
Father Lasance’s prayer book of 1908 gives a fuller grace after meals, with a line worth keeping for anyone who has been fed, carried or helped by others: “Vouchsafe, O Lord, to reward with eternal life all those who do us good for Thy name’s sake” (My Prayer-Book, p. 218). It closes with the versicle “Let us bless the Lord” and its response “Thanks be to God,” and then the versicle for the dead, “May the souls of the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace,” answered “Amen.”
Christians have prayed at table from the beginning. The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1909 gathers the witnesses: St. Paul’s counsel, “whether you eat or drink, or whatsoever else you do, do all to the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31, Douay-Rheims); Clement of Alexandria, who held it fitting to praise the Creator before taking food; Tertullian, who wrote that Christians did not recline at table until they had prayed.
The Lord Himself blessed bread before He gave it: “he took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples” (Matthew 14:19). St. Paul explains why the habit matters: “For every creature of God is good, and nothing to be rejected that is received with thanksgiving: For it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer” (1 Timothy 4:4–5). Teaching on the petition for daily bread, the Catechism reminds us that even food we have worked for remains the Father’s gift, and it names the family grace at meals as exactly that thanksgiving (CCC 2834).
When to pray it
- Before every meal, at home or out. The Sign of the Cross in a restaurant is a small, real witness.
- After the meal, before anyone leaves the table. The grace after meals is the one most often forgotten.
- Led in turn by whoever is at the table: a child, a guest, a husband, a grandmother. A woman eating alone says it no less truly.
- On feast days, naming the saint of the day before the blessing.