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Chapter Two

Feed the Hungry

So Jesus said to them, “Amen, amen, I say to you, it was not Moses who gave the bread from heaven; my Father gives you the true bread from heaven. For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.” So they said to him, “Sir, give us this bread always.” Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger.”

John 6:32-35

Feeding your family can seem like the height of drudgery. As one mom we know jokingly put it: “They want to eat … again? I just fed them yesterday!”

At first blush it can be hard to imagine that feeding your family could possibly be a spiritual exercise, but when you really think about it, it is hard to imagine an activity that bears more fruit than having regular family meals. God himself models the importance of family mealtime. He takes time out of the busiest schedule in the universe to sit down each day with his children at the family meal that is the Eucharist. The Eucharist is a profound sign that food feeds not only the body but the soul as well.

Ongoing research asserts that the simple ritual of regular family mealtimes is directly connected to happier marriage and family lives, increased physical and mental well-being for parents and children, better academic performance for students, and better behavior for both children and adolescents.

If family life is, as the Church asserts, a school of humanity, the family table is the place that the majority of those lessons are taught. The corporal work of mercy exhorting us to feed the hungry reminds us that family mealtimes don’t just feed our bellies. Like the Eucharist, they feed our souls as well.

Family meals are a great opportunity to grow in holiness. St. Catherine of Siena was known throughout the world for her wisdom, courage, and holy visions, but the thing that impressed St. Francis de Sales most about her was how she used the simple tasks of everyday life to grow closer to God. When she made dinner, she used to imagine cooking for Jesus. When she brought the food to the table, she would imagine that she was serving the apostles. This simple meditation enabled St. Catherine to turn feeding the hungry people in her house into a spiritual exercise, and the holiness and wisdom she gained from performing these simple acts with great love, in part, led to her being honored as a Doctor of the Church. In fact, St. Francis de Sales asserted that it was the holiness with which she attended to these tasks that prepared her to enter into the deeper mystical experiences for which she became famous. Her willingness to find the sacred in the mundane enabled her to encounter the sacred face-to-face.

Here are some ways you can begin to walk the little way of family life by practicing feed the hungry as a corporal work of mommy and daddy.

1. Ask Yourself: Who Is This For?

Take a page from St Catherine of Siena’s book and ask yourself, “For whom am I doing this?” Imagine that you are preparing meals for the Lord and serving his apostles at table. That doesn’t mean that you have to put on spiritual airs or speak any differently with your spouse and kids than you normally would. It just means realizing that “whatever you did for one of these least brothers of mine, you did for me” (Mt 25:40) and giving this simple task of meal preparation the attention it deserves.

2. Cooking with the Saints

When you’re making a meal, especially if you’re trying a new recipe and worried about getting it right (or how it might be received), take a moment to ask the saints to cook with you! We like to ask for the Blessed Mother’s intercession especially: “Blessed Mother, help us to prepare a meal worthy of your family. Ask Our Lord to let this food be good, nourishing, and enjoyable, and an opportunity for us to draw closer to God and each other.” By all means, use your own words. Regardless of what you pray or what saint’s intercession you invoke, such a simple prayer can help you connect deeper spiritual meaning with each meal you make!

3. Pray a Meaningful Grace Before Meals

A recent survey by CARA (the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate) shows that only 13 percent of Catholic families consistently say grace before meals, yet this is one of the easiest ways to begin cultivating a habit for family prayer. The most common form of grace before meals is “Bless us, O Lord, and these your gifts, which we are about to receive from your bounty, through Christ Our Lord. Amen.” Saying this simple prayer thoughtfully can fill your mealtimes with meaning.

But don’t stop there! Take a moment in prayer together to recount the blessings of the day and lift up any special concerns. Ultimately, prayer should draw your family closer to God and one another. Prayer is ultimately about intimacy — learning about each other’s joys, concerns, and aspirations, and then bringing those things to God so that he might bless, comfort, and counsel you. Make the most of mealtimes so that they feed your souls as well as your bellies!

4. Don’t Just Eat, Talk!

Part of making mealtimes a sacred space is making sure to use these times to share a little bit about your lives. Don’t accept “I don’t know” and “Nothing” as answers to “What did you do today?” These phrases are a strategy kids use to see if you really care to know. Push back a little by asking specific questions: “I know you were struggling with long division in math yesterday. How’d that go in class today?” “You said you were getting together with the team to do drills today. What happened?” Specific questions mean, “I care enough to know what to ask.”

Make conversation possible by turning off the television and putting away smartphones and other devices. Even in those instances where “family dinner” is a quick burger in the car between games, turn off the radio, put away the smartphones, say grace, and talk to each other! It is your presence, and your willingness to invite God to your meal, that makes the moment sacred.

Don’t be afraid to take your mealtime conversations to the next level by initiating conversations about each other’s thoughts, feelings, and the ways God is moving in your lives. If you don’t know how to do this, a quick Google search of “conversation cards” will yield an abundance of resources. These cards feature simple questions of the day that can take your conversations in fun and surprising directions. Use them as a springboard for more meaningful family discussions. As we point out in Discovering God Together: The Catholic Guide to Raising Faithful Kids, research consistently shows that children are more likely to own their faith as adults when they experience their faith as the source of the warmth in their homes. Mealtimes that begin with prayer and continue with family sharing create the warmth that makes faith and values stick.

5. Cook Together

Besides eating together, cooking together can also be a great way to turn feeding the hungry people in your home into a spiritual exercise. Cooking together encourages the spirit of generous mutual service — what Pope St. John Paul II referred to as “mutual self-donation” — that healthy family life depends upon. Families that work together learn to trust one another, to be generous to one another, and take ownership in the tasks that are part and parcel of creating a home. Make sure mom and dad, sisters and brothers, all pitch in on a regular basis to help make the meals, get the meals to the table, and clean up together afterward. Don’t just treat these things as a chore. Let them be a family activity that draw you closer together and help you learn from one another.

6. Meal Planning

There are many resources for meal planning, but many of these simply focus on the mechanics of getting a healthy rotation of nutritious foods to the table. When doing your own meal plan, remember that connection is as important as nutrition. In fact, planning a week of meals or more before food shopping helps the person who has to get the meals on the table stay in a calmer mood, and be more present to the family, come the chaos of the dinner hour. Keep your relationship in mind when meal planning. On less busy days, discuss, as a family, how you might make that mealtime a little more special. Perhaps there are some favorite meals the family might enjoy. Can you cook them together? On busier days, don’t overwhelm yourself. A simpler meal that allows you time and energy to talk and share is better than a perfect meal that leaves you spent and irritable.

7. Don’t Fight about Food

Generosity and self-control are important virtues, but they’re easily squelched by arguments about food. Make a rule that while family members can express preferences for the foods they are served, they may not complain about what they are served. Complaining undermines gratitude and makes mealtime seem like something to be survived. A pleasant, grateful spirit must be the price of admission to the family table. Pouters and complainers may stay in their rooms until they can get themselves in a more generous frame of mind.

Mealtime is also a great opportunity for parents to grow in virtue as we learn to gracefully manage our children’s eating habits. Encouraging a grateful spirit at the family table doesn’t require parents to turn mealtimes into power struggles. Small tummies mean small portions. Better to give children less and have them ask for more than give them too much and create both tension and waste.

If your children don’t finish what you feel is an age-appropriate serving, don’t force them to sit until the plate is clean. Simply wrap it up and save it for later when they are hungry again. When your child turns his or her nose up at new foods, don’t force the child to eat it all, but do require that he or she eat at least one mouthful before leaving the table. Don’t let the child off the hook, but be pleasant about it. Gentle, consistent encouragement allows both appetites and palettes grow with time. We offer more dinnertime discipline ideas in our book Parenting with Grace, but the most important takeaway is to not concern yourself so much about making children eat as with facilitating the kind of relationship that will make them more willing to try new things as they mature. Throughout this process moms and dads will be invited to grow in patience and compassion, and their children will be encouraged to grow in gratitude, self-control, and openness.

8. Share What You Have