Komm, Herr Jesu, sei Du unser Gast

I remember the day Daddy came into the kitchen when I was maybe five years old. There is fuzz around the edges of the memory, but it's there--standing out proudly as one of landmarks in my childhood, a moment that would change the way I prayed every day. It was lunch time and Mommy had set the table when Daddy came to take his seat. He folded his hands and said, "We're going to learn a new prayer today." Gently, patiently, he taught his small children how to say The Common Table Prayer in German. A tradition that would shape every meal to come.

The only time I didn't utter the words vocally in the following years was when we would eat at other people's homes and school cafeterias. But always with my family it was those words that had become an integral part of home. If home is where the heart is, then my home is laced with German prayers.

College was a place where you prayed silently before each meal--words internalized, but no less real. One of the things I would miss most from Pfeifenhof (the name of our home, meaning whistle home) was the fellowship in praying simultaneously in German with three other people. Each time summer would roll around I would become eager to sit around the table and offer up blessings.

I did not expect to feel Home during Dead Week and Finals Weeks my last semester of school. There it was though, amongst everything I had never dreamed of.

We sat, two nervous individuals, at a public restaurant with steaming food before us. I hadn't thought of the prayer in my preparations for the meal, but there it was when he asked,

"Do you pray before you eat?"  

Yes.

"Is the Common Table Prayer okay? That's what we normally do."  

Yes, you go ahead and pray, we normally say it in German, so I'll just listen. I don't know what made me say that, normally I just go with the flow.

"Oh, you mean, Komm, Herr Jesu, sei Du..."  

...Yes. Yes, that is exactly what I mean. And I can hardly find the words.

"Well, we can pray in German. You had better lead though, because I don't know if I remember the last part."

And I can't believe that we're praying together over our food in German, and part of my heart is singing at how homey it all feels. It's a good thing the German comes as second nature because I don't know if English would have come so easily in that moment.

Less than a week later we're sitting at a different table, with different food, but a look passes between us and he bows his head and starts saying the words. My Daddy's words, and the words of past years long gone. He's leading this time, confidant and sure. And as we pray for Christ's blessings on our food I'm praying a silent prayer that His blessings be on this, whatever this is.

And that second prayer continues to grow.

"Komm, Herr Jesu, sei Du unser Gast, und segna, was Du uns bescheret hast. Amen."