by DOROTHY COUP
“Five o’clock, time to go home for tea,” my mother would say, sending home any neighbourhood children playing at our house.
If I were at a friend’s house, I would leave at five for home, to help with dinner, little jobs like peeling potatoes, or setting the table. Everyone I knew then ate tea with their
family at the table.
It was the same with my children. For as long as possible — before sport practices, meetings, school show rehearsals and university lectures meant we were not always together — whoever was home ate together at the table.
The overseas students who lived with us thought this “the Kiwi way”, and the boarders had their own places at the table. Then one Friday night, when there was a good programme on TV, I suggested “a fish and chips tea in front of telly”.
My children readily agreed but our university student boarder said: “NO! Inthis house we eat at the table and talk.”
She explained it had been a new experience to eat as a family at the table.
In her home, kitchen and dining tables were always “covered with stuff” — projects, plans, material and artistic work her family were involved with. Meals were prepared but eaten at different times, often alone, in front of TV, or in bedrooms while doing homework.
She loved our ordinary ritual of eating from plates with knives, forks and spoons, passing
around the vegetables, gravy, butter, salt or pepper and the social aspect of discussing anything and everything.
Grace before meals was now part of her life.
I remember my daughter, aged about seven, coming home somewhat bewildered after eating at a friend’s home where there had been no blessing before the meal.
“If people don’t have Grace, how do they know when they are supposed to start eating?” she asked.
She solved that problem for a visitor, as we sat down at the table (in case he were unaccustomed to Grace): “Just wait. You can start eating when we lift up our heads and open our eyes.”
Today the catchphrase is, “life is so busy”. Many people have two meals a day away from home. But family is so important we must make the effort to get together, even if it is just one, or two, special family meals a week.
I know from experience not all meals are enjoyed by everyone: “Do I have to eat all these peas? I’ve got five more peas than him. Can I leave five peas and still have pudding?”
“I can’t eat casserole. I told you this morning I am now vegetarian.”
“I hate fish pie.”
Nor is the conversation always meaningful:
“What did you do at school today?”
“Nothing.”
We ate together as a family, called by some the “domestic Church”. Night after night we sat down to give thanks, bless our food and remember those who made it possible. We prayed that God would “give food to the hungry” and that those who had food (like us) would have a hunger for justice. We graced our meal and our lives.
Then on Sundays we gathered at the table of the Lord with other families, to give thanks, pray for ourselves and the world and share Eucharist.
Sunday Mass may be the highlight, but eating together as a family at home is also a holy meal.
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