July 2012
(Full text of sermon) Earlier this week, we celebrated the Feast of SS. Joachim and Anna. Now the beautiful and marvelous thing about them is that they were the grandparents of Jesus. We probably never think about Jesus having grandparents, but it is a wonderful and fruitful thing to meditate upon—because it tells us that the way we are saved is by means of “family”. It is family that brings everything together in our lives and helps us make sense of those lives and helps bring us to heaven.
Family is that important.
Jesus Himself, as He grew in age and wisdom and grace, received so much from his grandparents. He heard the same stories and saw the same ways and customs that His Mother Mary heard and saw. He saw His grandparents pray—and maybe He saw them hold hands. The young boy Jesus saw how Joachim reverenced Anna and how Anna reverenced Joachim. As their little grandson, Jesus received what Mary as a little girl received—so much love and instruction and then more love.
Grandparents teach us
That is why grandparents are so incredibly important. They help us figure out what is going on in our lives and in the life of the world. First they teach our parents about life and love and family and then they teach us.
Grandparents (or just older and wiser people in our lives), need to realize how important is their role in raising family and passing on all the good things they know and believe.
They cannot think of themselves only as the little old lady on the hot chocolate box. Grand -parenting consists of so much more than giving out candy and hugs and ice cream and pop at family parties. Grand-parenting is about life and death really.
Grandparents are the repository of the family history. They are the living memory of all the traditions of a family. They are the Treasury and Dispensary of the Catholic Faith for their people. And even when the practice of the faith is in danger—and only a few of the family members are going to Mass and fewer still believing in the Catholic way of life—it is the grandparents who can make a difference.
Handing on the stories
They will make their grandchildren proud of them and proud to be a member of that family—and therefore proud to be Catholic—simply by telling their grandchildren—this is how it used to be. When they tell those stories of life and family in the old days, it will make those grandchildren understand that that is how it ought to be because the children will yearn to be like these heroes from the olden days. In that way children will accept and love that which their grandparents tell them.
When they hear stories from Grandpa or Grandma, the little ones will try to imagine what life was like when people actually talked to each other and not to an Android or Ipad. Grandchildren will marvel at stories on how it used to be when everyone ate meals at home and didn’t have to run out to games and practice all day and all night. How there were actually moments in an old-fashioned home that the television wasn’t even on, and how they all had clubs and games in the alley and adventures all day and everyday and never even carried a cell phone.
Grandchildren will be mesmerized with stories of how in the olden days before the government took over, Dad needed to work only one job and mom didn’t even have to go to work.
How to live and be a Catholic
Kids will learn how beautiful it is to pray and to make the sign of the cross and how to go to church and use the holy water and why we genuflect and how we talk to Jesus and Mary—and how to live and act and be a good Catholic and a good person—and one day a good mom and good dad. This is a teaching responsibility that sometimes falls to the grandparents.
But why not? Their memory stretches back to their own grandparents—whose memory stretches back to their own grandparents—and to theirs before—and on and on.
Think of it—if grandparents are talking to the children and telling them stories and tales and histories and traditions and how it was back in the day and what they endured and what they enjoyed—how their family did things—how they believed—how they lived and how they died—and how they passed it all on to this present generation—well those children are in almost direct contact with a Catholic way of family and way of life from two or three hundred years ago—a way of being family untouched by the atheism and greed of our era.
Fill their souls with good things
What better way for our children to learn than from their grandparents? It is so important for today’s little ones to know who they are—and not to forget who they were. How utterly vital it is to the life and salvation of our children’s souls to hear what their grandparents have to tell them. Grandparents must tell them about life and love and family and faith—and fill their souls up with good things.
Otherwise they will learn about life and love from the Father of Lies—and that is good for no one.