Archbishop Daniel Bohan would like Catholic families to reintroduce or reemphasize the practice of saying grace before meals in this 100th Anniversary of our being an Archdiocese. Pretty simple. Pretty easy to do. But will it make any difference? Can something as small as a memorized prayer before a family meal stand up to the massive pressures we often feel against our faith in contemporary culture?
In the past, Catholics have sometimes put the wrong emphasis on certain practices of popular piety or even of obligations like fasting on Friday. If anyone was given the impression that having their eggs accidentally touch bacon grease on a Friday morning meant they were in a state of mortal sin, it is not surprising that such practices were largely abandoned in favour of a less legalistic approach to the life of faith.
But when Catholics were (rightly) encouraged not to view the practices of faith through such legalistic lenses, they often lost sight of the real value of such practices. They could easily be seen as mere external rituals that had little bearing on our real spiritual state, our possession (or not) of faith, hope and love. Consequently such practices as not eating meat on Friday, not shopping on Sunday, praying the Rosary together, or even saying grace at meals quietly fell by the wayside.
But these practices were never supposed to be mechanistic ways of staying in God’s good books. Practice – all practices – intimately affect the way we live and understand ourselves. This is true whether we are conscious of undertaking certain practices or not. So things like watching TV or surfing the internet for hours on end actually form us. Things like having a smart phone always at the ready shapes our days and even, to a degree, our personalities.
We are always doing something. Even doing nothing is doing something! And what we do makes us into who we are.
The practices of faith that our Catholic Church encourages are meant to form us into people who can see the world from a different point of view, from God’s point of view, and then to have the wisdom and the grace to act accordingly.
What happens when we don’t eat meat on Friday? We have to consciously plan our eating. We have to make sure there is food in the house that will give our families something nutritious and sustaining on Friday and so we have to plan our grocery shopping days in advance.
If we are going to be at a social event, we have to be aware of how we will respond to being offered meat to eat there. The Church gives us options here. If we choose to eat meat, perhaps because it is offered by a host at a party, we can fulfill our obligation by an act of charity. That too requires a certain intentionality about what our day is going to look like.
The point is not to fulfill our obligations to avoid God’s wrath, but to let practices shape us in an intentional way. We are going to be shaped by our practices one way or another. Something like avoiding meat on Friday or not shopping on Sunday (which also requires forethought and shapes our days) is a way for us to take some control of how we are being formed.
The Church offers us a whole host of such opportunities for intentional formation. Daily Scripture reading. Family Rosary. A whole array of private devotions like novenas and chaplets. The Liturgy of the Hours (which many laypeople now pray with the help of apps on their smart phones). Sacred art displayed in our homes. The Angelus at noon.
Catholic writer Anna Nussbaum Keating says that we say the Angelus to remind ourselves that we are humans and not oxen! In times past, farm workers would stop their work for five minutes at noon when the Church bell tolled in order to say the Angelus. After working all day looking at the ground like the oxen pulling the plough, these Christian workers took 5 minutes to look to heaven. It reminded them that they were made for more than this earth and that our temporal needs are not our only needs. In the rat race of modern society, many of us could benefit from such a reminder.
Such practices are especially important for parents with young children. Many of us worry about the pressures our children will face in this world and wonder how we can form them in a way that will keep them close to the Church. The world will constantly foist practices upon our kids that will distract them and lead them astray. Incorporating concrete practices of faith in our homes will give them an anchor when the storm blows in.
One great thing for a family to do is to have a liturgical calendar placed prominently in the home and frequently refer to it. What is the liturgical season we are in? What does it mean? What practices fit well within it (like the Jesse Tree during Advent or Stations of the Cross during Lent)? Is it a feast day? Is there a saint or an aspect of salvation history we can focus on today in our prayers?
The world’s calendars dominate our lives. We are so overbooked and overworked, it is easy to lose sight of the fact that God is the Lord of time. Following a liturgical calendar is like the Angelus in that it helps us to see the big picture when life gets too crazy and our priorities start to slip.
Now, life is complicated and life is busy. And we are all creatures of habit. It is not very likely that all of us will implement all these practices into our family life right this instant. Perhaps over time we can reintroduce different practices that seem right to our families at the right time. We’re not all called to do everything, but we should all be doing something.
And being intentional about grace before meals? That’s a great start.
