Graces from around the world
A selection of graces from around the world - Kenya, Sierra Leone and El Salvador. Use these prayers when you sit down to eat at home or in your community.
A family share a meal in El Salvador.
“Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were at the table with him.”
Jesus calls Levi, right in the middle of his work, to follow him. Levi’s immediate response is clear, from the banquet he holds to introduce others to Jesus.
It is a reminder of the power of eating and drinking together at a table where all are welcome. In breaking bread together, we acknowledge not just our need for nourishment, but also our need for relationship.
As Dorothy Day writes in The Long Loneliness: “We cannot love God unless we love each other, and to love we must know each other. We know Him in the breaking of bread, and we know each other in the breaking of bread, and we are not alone anymore. Heaven is a banquet and life is a banquet, too, even with a crust, where there is companionship.”
Who is at your table this Lent? And at whose table are you?
Lent prayer
Loving God,
at your table, all are welcome.
Fill us with your love,
so that we might welcome others,
as you first welcomed us.
Amen.
Act
Reflect on who you share a table with this Lent and take some time to thank God with our graces from around the world.