I have put them all on a new page at the side of the blog, like this;
I wrote
a blog post on Sunday September 7thth 2025 about saying ‘Grace’
before meals, and included these;
All good gifts around us
are sent from heav’n above;
Then thank the Lord, O
thank the Lord for all His love.
We often sing
this together before a shared Harvest Supper, or any other shared meal at my
home church. (We joke that our church does love a shared meal)
Also, in a
novel I was reading, someone said a grace before a meal, remembered from their
days as an undergraduate at Oxford;
Benedictus benedicat, which means 'may the Blessed One
give a blessing'
And a little
sung grace I learned from the children at a Church of England primary school;
Thank you for the world so
sweet, ho hum.
Thank you for the food we
eat, yum, yum.
Thank you for the birds
that sing-a-ling-a-ling.
Thank you God for
everything,
Ho hum, yum yum,
sing-a-ling,
Amen!
Then the
comments started rolling in! So here are all the ‘Graces’ from that post…
From Granny
Marigold;
'For what we are about to receive, may we be
truly thankful'.
My reply;
I have a feeling that we used to say 'For what we are about to receive, may the
Lord make us truly thankful' which always sounded slightly threatening to me.
From Martha;
'Rub-a-dub, thanks for the
grub', from a trainee
youth pastor, much to the surprise of the senior pastor.
My reply;
I have just remembered 'ta, Pa'; which I think one of our vicar’s children replied
when asked to say grace at a Sunday lunch we had been invited to. (It was a
very very long time ago so it might have been a different child, and a
different occasion!)
Three
contributions from Skye;
1. Father, Son and Holy Ghost,
Whoever eats the fastest, gets the most
When asked to say grace, the speedy reply is, 'Grace'.
2. Not a grace, but a little something
from Jonathan Swift:
On the table spread the cloth,
Let the knives be sharp and clean:
Pickles get and salad both,
Let them each be fresh and green:
With small beer, good ale, and wine,
O ye gods! how I shall dine.
Frugally
Challenged wrote one
for wedding receptions
St (John's) Church with the sun above
Thank you, God, for the gift of love.
(The Berkeley Hotel) and a great hub-bub
Thank you God for the gift of grub.
And added this (‘Not one of mine but lovely’)
For food in a world where many walk in hunger.
For faith in a world where many walk in fear.
For friends in a world where many walk alone,
We give you humble thanks, O Lord.
From Ang;
A Breakfast
Prayer from my youth "Lord make me not like porridge, slow and hard to stir, but
make me like cornflakes, quick and ready to serve"
From Sue
in Suffolk;
We always
said grace when we ate anywhere where Father in Law was present, - Methodist
Lay Preacher - and I've just remembered the grace he said - been trying to
think of it since your post the other day,
"For this and all thy gifts we thank you Lord".
There was a short children’s one too - I wonder if any of my children can
remember it
From
Chris;
We always
say a Grace and hold hands in cafes.. at home I always add a thanks to the
cook!
From
Beth;
In my former
small congregation we often gathered for meals and used the following sung
grace, which we knew from More Voices, one of our United Church of Canada
hymnaries. It's translated from Spanish and is apparently set to a traditional
Argentinian melody.
See here on YouTube for the Spanish and then
the English: https://youtu.be/PiFG07FZ3zI
God bless to us our bread.
Give bread to all those who are hungry,
and hunger for justice to those who are fed.
God bless to us our bread.