Customer Reviews

100 Graces: Mealtime Blessings

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

After realizing how rote saying grace had become for me, especially since I eat most of my meals alone, the glorious graces in this book helped me center and use this sacred time to make a heartfelt connection. Also, I began to praise things I'd never considered before (like the sacrifices made by individuals, animals, plants, etc.) that went into the making of the meal. It is an absolutely awesome collection of elegant blessings.

As the spiritual aims chair for a civic club, I'm the fella' who gives an invocation before each meal. Since it's important that our activities are non-denominational, I find this book to be a great resource. Need a meal-time invocation? Then get this book.

This is a dear, concise, wise little book. It sits on our dining table. My husband and I take turns saying grace each evening, opening randomly and reading. It has prayers from many different spiritual sources and we find it refreshing and meaningful.

As a minister and someone who holds a discipline of giving thanks before each meal, I was slightly disappointed by this nice little book. It proclaims to be a collection of 100 graces, but this is slightly deceiving, though I don't think this is on purpose. Nevertheless, for someone looking for a collection of 100 interesting prayers this is a nice book. For someone looking for a collection of 100 graces for meals, you may be disappointed.

Why? First, the book only contains 95 prayers, plus a nice introductory grace. And of those 95, I would only say that about 55 could be considered mealtime graces. Many of the others are nice prayers and blessings and a few nice sayings but shouldn't be considered as graces. Grace by definition means "giving thanks," and if it is to be used for a meal it should also mention food and/or eating. By that criteria, almost half of the offerings in this book aren't graces because they don't mention food or eating and/or giving thanks. In the end, this book might better be called "100 Prayers and Mealtime Blessings."

Some have also mentioned the price, which in this case would seem a bit steep, especially if you were expecting something other than you received. Nevertheless, I found this book interesting, helpful, and refreshing. It would certainly make for a nice gift for someone who enjoys prayers, blessings, and graces.

This is a perfect gift book that we have given to numerous friends. We also keep one on the dinig table and often invite guests to choose a grace to read before meals. There are selections that appeal to almost any spiritual tradition or viewpoint.

This small book packs a lot of punch. Most graces are short and encompass a variety of faith traditions. I recommend this book for anyone who wants to give thanks for their blessings at mealtime.

small but still a nice collection of works. perhaps a bit expensive for such a small book, though.

This is a beautiful book of table graces and other prayers taken from many traditions ranging from Christian, Jewish, Native American, Hindu, Buddhist, and Islam among others. The prayers not only include grace before meals but touch on other topics such as a prayer of thanks on rising to a new day, a prayer before starting a chore, praise for creation, prayers for peace. I especially liked the prayer that deal with Advent as it expresses such longing: "Come, Lord Jesus! Come stay with my family and friends....Come, Lord Jesus! Bring peace to our world." And one to our Earth Mother that acknowledges gratitude for sunlight, rain, friends, and the "giveaway of the lives of chicken, beets...grains and lettuce that we may continue our lives." There also are traditional Celtic prayers that ask for God's presence in all of life's activities: "God in my speaking, God in my thinking....God in my life....God in my heart" as well as "Deep peace of the shining star to you, Deep peace of the running wave to you...." The book also contains a prayer about God as "I am:" admonishing us to live in the moment rather than regretting the past and fearing the future. There even is the traditional benediction used in both Jewish and Christian traditions, "The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face to shine upon you and be gracious unto you...." I highly recommend this book to anyone who is seeking a collection of prayers dealing with a number of topics from a variety of different faith traditions. I can assure you that you will treasure this small but rich volume.

I was a little disappointed that this book is so small. It fits in your shirt pocket. For the price, it should be a regular size book

This was a very nice collection of table blessings, but not what I was looking for as a teacher of the very young.