At my large family gatherings growing up (all birthdays, a bunch of Sundays, all major holidays), there were two kinds of prayers. There was the “Lord we thank you for …” (the … was everything the pray-er was thanking God for) and then you’d hear a loud exhale when we could all dig in to Gramps’ sauce. Or if one of my uncles prayed, it was either “Rubbadubdub, thanks for the grub” or “….good God let’s eat.”

If it was just my grandparents, dad, brother and me—Tuesdays & every other weekend—it was some kind of formalized prayer that I don’t remember but I do know this: my grandparents and dad always did the hand to head-heart-shoulders motion of Father/Son/Holy Spirit.

Living down south for 15 years, that tradition definitely disappeared. I can’t say I saw it once at any dinner I attended while I lived away, and though I was confirmed Catholic at 13, my husband didn’t grow up with it so we just didn’t carry it on. Now that we’re back home, my dad and step-mom do it every night at dinner but with a specific prayer:

Bless us, Oh Lord,
and these thy gifts which
we are about to receive
from thy bounty,
through Christ, Our Lord.
Amen.

As beautiful and important as the Our Father is, I love thinking about this prayer. It’s such a simple request and acknowledgement but both can make all the difference.

Asking God for his blessing on ourselves and the gifts he’s given us puts our faith in him as the ultimate blesser, the ultimate creator of good and beautiful things.

Acknowledging that what we’re about to receive - the food, the sustainment, the nourishment, the refreshment - is a gift. A gift is a blessing in and of itself, for it says from the giver: you are loved, you are seen, you are cared for.

Acknowledging God’s bounty places our heart in the right place of knowing that God’s very nature is synonymous with abundance.

Acknowledging that this bounty comes through Christ reminds us that we are saved by the Son of Man who walked this earth as fully human. God sent his ultimate gift through his son. God sent his bounty through the salvation offered to us through the sacrifice of his son, who is Lord of our lives if we so ask him to be.

Short, sweet, to the point. Yet thick with meaning, purpose, and divine intervention for our weary souls.

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May you experience God’s bounty today. May His blessing and His gifts be so obvious that they jump right out at you and fill your heart with uncontainable, unimaginable joy.

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