GOD, THANK YOU FOR THIS PERFECTLY ORDINARY DINNER TOO.

Dinner's almost ready. Or, more precisely, there is something in the fridge that can become a dinner if you stop opening doors without deciding. You still have a conversation in your head, something to do tomorrow, that message you didn't answer. Put the plate on and sit down.

It's not a night to remember on the calendar. No party, no big news. Yet there is this moment: you can stop, eat, maybe meet someone who all day you have only crossed. Here too you can find a prayer before dinner.

It can only last a short time. A grace pronounced calmly, the sign of the cross if you wish to do so, a person remembered by name. The daily table must not become perfect so that you can recognize the good that exists. You can get tired, distracted, with something still to fix.

A Thanks Inside Normal Life

The Catechism of the Catholic Church, at number 2834, explains the blessing of the table as thanksgiving to the Father for food. In the neighboring numbers it binds the bread asked in prayer to sharing and responsibility for those who suffer from hunger. Thanks can therefore broaden our eyes, while helping us to stand in the present.

If you have prepared, you know the work behind that dish. If someone else did, you can see it and say it. Even a simple meal crosses hands, time, activities that usually remain out of our attention. For a moment we can recognize that the day did not support it completely alone.

The prayer that follows is an original text of the writing of CHIARA!, proposed for personal or family devotion. You can read it entirely, choose a few lines or use it as a start to find your own words. It is not a liturgical formula and is not attributed to a saint.

Prayer for this normal dinner

Sir Jesus, we've arrived at night. I bring you the day as it is: what I have finished, what I have postponed, the successful words and what I would now say in another way. I sit in front of this dish and I really want to stop, even for a little while.

Thanks for the food in front of me. Thank you for those who worked to get here, for those who prepared it and for those who remembered to ask what was missing. Help me recognize the cure, especially when it's so usual that I may never see it again.

Thank you for the people who share my table. Everyone brings something I don't know to the bottom: a joy, a worry, a restrained effort. Give us kind words and patience to listen. If we are hurt today, help us to seek a possible gesture of peace, without hiding what needs to be clarified.

If I eat alone tonight, stay with me. You know the different taste that silence can have: sometimes it rests, sometimes it weighs. I trust you with the people I want here and the people I hope to meet again. Help me also to ask for company when I feel the need.

I remind you who doesn't have enough to eat tonight and who watches the phone hoping for a call. Open my eyes to neighboring needs. Let me understand what help I can offer, with discretion and continuity, according to my possibilities.

I also entrust you to those who live the moment of the meal with effort. It gives support, respect and people able to accompany. Let no one at this table defend his body from judgments, nor deserve affection by demonstrating something through food.

Thank you for what was simple today: a kind answer, a ray of sunshine, someone who made me smile. Help me not to go through everything without realizing it. Bless this table and teach us to share bread, time and care. Amen.

If not everyone prays at the table

There may be those who share your faith and those who feel far away, those who love to say a prayer aloud and those who prefer silence. You can propose a small moment without turning it into a proof of belonging. The freedom of those who are with you deserves respect even when the gesture has a profound meaning for you.

If you wish to pray personally, you can do so in silence. If anyone wants to add a thank you, you can give them space. A family habit can grow through a simple proposal, without commenting on those who participate less or checking that everyone shows the same recollection.

What if you've already started eating? You can stop at that moment. Gratitude does not depend on being able to organize every detail. It can reach you even as you pass the water or you realize that someone has left the last portion for you.

A thought that can become a gesture

Remembering those who are hungry can be accompanied by a concrete choice: to inform you about a reliable food collection, to contribute according to your possibilities, to ask first what products they serve. Even carefully using what you already have is a way to take that thought seriously.

Then dinner will continue, with dishes to wash and conversation that may change the subject three times. Prayer must have had its space in the evening. You may not feel different from before, but you will have given a name to something that easily remains implicit: I am here, I have received good and I want to learn to share it.