Visiting family - Prayers before meals

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask them to make it a short prayer so the food doesn't get cold.

"God is great, God is good. Lord we thank you for this food. Amen."

" Rub a dub! dub!"
"Thanks for the grub!"
" Yaaaaay God!"

This is my father’s favorite prayer.

And I bet your Mom can stand it just like my wife.😄

We all thought it was funny. In the dad joke realm.

When my grandmother was alive she had a short lovely blessing. That was nice. I loved it because it was important to her.

[Anonymous]

Jewish (agnostic) person here with christian spouse with religious family. At first it felt very awkward but I just went with it- I knew what I was marrying into and accepted it. Now I don't mind it--I usually don't bow my head--I'll look around at everyone else's bowed heads and marvel that it must be nice to have faith like that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask them to make it a short prayer so the food doesn't get cold.

"God is great, God is good. Lord we thank you for this food. Amen."

" Rub a dub! dub!"
"Thanks for the grub!"
" Yaaaaay God!"

My uncle, a retired Catholic priest, has been known to use this prayer before meals when other family members make a BIG DEAL out of having a priest at the dinner table.

He’s not a fan of performative prayer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask them to make it a short prayer so the food doesn't get cold.

"God is great, God is good. Lord we thank you for this food. Amen."

" Rub a dub! dub!"
"Thanks for the grub!"
" Yaaaaay God!"

My uncle, a retired Catholic priest, has been known to use this prayer before meals when other family members make a BIG DEAL out of having a priest at the dinner table.

He’s not a fan of performative prayer.

Saying grace at thanksgiving is performative?

Maybe op having anxiety over family saying grace is performative.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask them to make it a short prayer so the food doesn't get cold.

"God is great, God is good. Lord we thank you for this food. Amen."

" Rub a dub! dub!"
"Thanks for the grub!"
" Yaaaaay God!"

That works too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask them to make it a short prayer so the food doesn't get cold.

"God is great, God is good. Lord we thank you for this food. Amen."

" Rub a dub! dub!"
"Thanks for the grub!"
" Yaaaaay God!"

My uncle, a retired Catholic priest, has been known to use this prayer before meals when other family members make a BIG DEAL out of having a priest at the dinner table.

He’s not a fan of performative prayer.

Yeah there's no reason to go on and on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I totally understand you feelings but for me it would be too big of a statement to opt out. I am imaging 15 guest for Thanksgiving in a prayer circle and you alone on the couch. .

Just have your own moment ...think about a happy time or a loved one you miss.

This.

[Anonymous]

“Bless this mess” — my father occasionally pulled this out from his Air Force days. He was very Christian but also thought he’d meet Buddha and Mohammed in heaven.

[Anonymous]

Use the opportunity to pause, take a deep breath, ground yourself, do a little meditation. While they are bowing their heads, close your eyes and breathe.

What’s an alternative? Trying to bow out in any kind of way would surely cause a scene.

Except doing this kind of thing at a restaurant would be too much. I’d just never go with these people. At home sure, but not in public. It’s a restaurant not a church.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, when in Rome follow their rules. However, if they are in your home you take charge. Do not let them abuse your hospitality to impose something on you that you do not agree with. You can maintain the performative aspects of their “prayer” but perhaps instead of praying, you announce a theme for brief reflection. It can be anything you choose: the genocide occurring in Palestine, the ongoing assault on reproductive rights, the theft of indigenous people’s lands come immediately to mind for me. It’s your home, your rules.

By all means lets discuss genocide and abortion before eating our Thanksgiving feast. Ugh. Odd sense of hospitality that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:“Bless this mess” — my father occasionally pulled this out from his Air Force days. He was very Christian but also thought he’d meet Buddha and Mohammed in heaven.

I bet your mom was excited to hear her husband call the Thanksgiving meal she cooked alone in the kitchen while he watched football a “mess.”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DH’s family is pretty religious. The time I feel the most uncomfortable with it is during prayers before meals. No matter where we are - restaurant, one of their homes, standing at a party - people will join hands and one of them will make up a prayer. It is usually pretty involved and lengthy, custom made each time to fit the situation. They often pray for us (the visiting family), whoever else they know that might need support, etc. If at our house or a restaurant, they also circle up and hold hands and pray. Sometimes the prayers are quite fervent in nature. Sometimes they feel quite hypocritical and awkward if, say, someone decides that that is the time to beg God’s forgiveness for something they’ve done wrong.

I understand that this ritual is very important to them.

I am not religious by any stretch of the imagination and I don’t have particularly good experiences with religion. I don’t particularly want to hold peoples hands, bow my head, and lower my eyes while they pray their prayers. It is awkward and doesn’t feel right to me. And gets more so every with every holiday and other family gathering.

Do I continue to hold hands and lower my head and eyes in deference to what they’re doing - I don’t know why, actually, heads are lowered - and just keep feeling uncomfortable on so many levels?

My question is for both religious and non religious folks, I suppose: do I continue to feel awkward for the rest of my life and hold hands while they pray? Is there a way to kindly and respectfully opt out without causing an issue? I did excuse myself once for the restroom as they were gathering and when I returned, the entire group of 15 or so were waiting on me so they could pray before putting food on their plates.

Obviously not a hill to die on, but I dread it before we head down there. And dread it prior to each meal. I don’t know why it causes me such anxiety, but it does.

- why does grace before Thanksgiving dinner fill you with anxiety?

-what have you decided to do?

-are you still active in this thread?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask them to make it a short prayer so the food doesn't get cold.

"God is great, God is good. Lord we thank you for this food. Amen."

" Rub a dub! dub!"
"Thanks for the grub!"
" Yaaaaay God!"

My uncle, a retired Catholic priest, has been known to use this prayer before meals when other family members make a BIG DEAL out of having a priest at the dinner table.

He’s not a fan of performative prayer.

Saying grace at thanksgiving is performative?

Maybe op having anxiety over family saying grace is performative.

DP, no, that's not his point. PP referenced the vanity of the host; pride in having a priest at the meal makes the prayer performative.

Most Catholics aren't fans of performative prayer. I like this quote from Pope Francis: "The Lord tells us: the first task in life is this: prayer. But not the prayer of words like a parrot, but the prayer of the heart, gazing on the Lord, hearing the Lord, asking the Lord."

Prayer is too often turned into something other than prayer. In PP's Thanksgiving example, the host made a "BIG DEAL" over the priest giving grace, which tuned grace into an act of vanity. The priest countered that by offering a humble blessing. In a public place shared by others like a restaurant, a humble, silent prayer is just as good for the earnest believer; there is no need to hold a public prayer meeting at Burger King. The louder and more publicly disruptive you are, the more your prayer risks being something else: vanity, proselytizing, pretense, hypocrisy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ask them to make it a short prayer so the food doesn't get cold.

"God is great, God is good. Lord we thank you for this food. Amen."

" Rub a dub! dub!"
"Thanks for the grub!"
" Yaaaaay God!"

My uncle, a retired Catholic priest, has been known to use this prayer before meals when other family members make a BIG DEAL out of having a priest at the dinner table.

He’s not a fan of performative prayer.

Saying grace at thanksgiving is performative?

Maybe op having anxiety over family saying grace is performative.

DP, no, that's not his point. PP referenced the vanity of the host; pride in having a priest at the meal makes the prayer performative.

Most Catholics aren't fans of performative prayer. I like this quote from Pope Francis: "The Lord tells us: the first task in life is this: prayer. But not the prayer of words like a parrot, but the prayer of the heart, gazing on the Lord, hearing the Lord, asking the Lord."

Prayer is too often turned into something other than prayer. In PP's Thanksgiving example, the host made a "BIG DEAL" over the priest giving grace, which tuned grace into an act of vanity. The priest countered that by offering a humble blessing. In a public place shared by others like a restaurant, a humble, silent prayer is just as good for the earnest believer; there is no need to hold a public prayer meeting at Burger King. The louder and more publicly disruptive you are, the more your prayer risks being something else: vanity, proselytizing, pretense, hypocrisy.

A prayer with family over a meal is an act of vanity?


Christians have a long tradition of pausing and thanking God before eating a meal. It’s so common that sometimes we can slide into and out of our prayer without much thought.

It’s humbling to say, “thank you.” To give thanks before eating is an act of expressing gratitude.

In the life of Jesus, we see him regularly stopping to thank God for providing food. He prays before the feeding of the 5,000 (Matt. 14:19). He prays before the Last Supper (Matt. 26:26–29).

Are you a Christian, pp?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:“Bless this mess” — my father occasionally pulled this out from his Air Force days. He was very Christian but also thought he’d meet Buddha and Mohammed in heaven.

I bet your mom was excited to hear her husband call the Thanksgiving meal she cooked alone in the kitchen while he watched football a “mess.”

We said grace at every meal. Of course Thanksgiving got better treatment.