Table Blessings: Mealtime Prayers Throughout the Year

Composed and arranged with sensitivity to the liturgical year, this is a most welcome addition to any home or monastery's devotional material.

In ancient times meals were sacred moments, whether alone or in community, a time for thought, reflection, recreation, celebration, and a time for prayer. Now we more often see the image of a driver turning a steering wheel with elbows or knees while scrunching a cell phone under one ear, gesturing rudely to other drivers while sipping a latte and munching a double mac with a mouthful of fries. And then refarding their face. Where have we gone? The great Benedictine monk and world famous monastic chef Brother Victor-Antoine d'Avila-LaTourette calls us all back home together, calls us to come to the table, calls us to prayer. The thoughtful introduction in itself is a meditation upon the history and function and practice of prayer at table, whether alone or cenobitical. Brother Victor-Antoine traces the history of prayer at meals back through early judaic times. He reminds us the central and centering mystery of our Faith took place at the last Passover meal of Jesus, who prayed, whose prayer we now share. He recounts the other numerous occassions in which Jesus is present at meals, including with sinners of all stripes, and His compassionate feeding of the five thousand with a blessing and a few baskets of bread, after, as Our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI reminds us towards the closing of his great and recent Apostolic Exhortation Sacramento de La Caridad: Sacramentum Caritatis, instructing the Apostles, and us, to "Feed them yourselves!" Brother Victor-Antoine calls us to remember the master of the feast, to give thanks always to God who so abundantly and mercifully blesses us. Brother reminds us never to forget the poor and those who go without, and eagerly to share the blessings which come our way, as an instrument of God's peace and love. As a working hermit, and a Benedictine Oblate, and a student and practitioner of Catholic prayer, I receive very gratefully this strong book by my Brother Victor-Antoine, whom I had the joy and honor of encountering at Regina Laudis Abbey one Christmas years back, as he sat and signed his several books. I am thus especially touched and strengthened and consoled and comforted and accompanied in prayer as he writes in this introduction: "These readings are not meant to be used only by Christian groups or families. They are also meant for the Christian who lives alone and wishes to honor the Lord in a special way at the daily meal. The readings and prayers are meant for both collective and individual use." Please notice the inclusive term Christian, as Brother Victor-Antoine explicitly seeks to follow in obedience decades of direct Papal exhortations regarding our separated brethren. Thus he writes: "Although mainly inspired by the Catholic tradition, it is meant to be ecumenical in character. ( . . .) Hopefully, those who pray them together in the context of a shared meal will grow gradually above denominational barriers into that unity which Christ wishes for his church." Certainly, as we witnessed

Table Blessings is not just another book of dinner prayers. Rather each day's entry follows the standard form of a blessing - a reading, a responsory (verse and response), the Lord's Prayer and a Blessing. The readings are from the saints. The blessings come both from the author and from traditional sources. There are blessings for ordinary time in the four week cycle of the liturgy of the hours, for liturgical seasons, and for the sanctoral cycle. Prayers of Thanksgiving after eating and blessings for special foods are given. The result is a book intended for use ecumenically.This is a book that belongs in any Christian home. And for an extra delight, pair it with a meal from one of the author's cookbooks.