When I was asked to write a May reflection on how the spirit and life of our Mother Mary can enrich the role of a grandmother, I felt humbled and challenged.
At this moment, I am sitting in one of the many rooms in our home where the walls are lovingly marked by artwork fashioned by our 50 grandchildren over many childhood years. Some of the grandchildren who made these pictures with baby hands are now teens or even college graduates. At least three are married with children themselves, our five great-grandchildren!
These childish drawings remind us each day of the many gifts St. Anne must have experienced through her own daughter, Mary. Through Mary’s fiat, St. Anne became the grandmother of God Himself.
Over several decades, I have experienced the joy of a new grandchild many times over. There is no more joyful “Thy will be done” than that of a grandmother. But as each grandchild graced our lives, every birth still seemed as new, rich and awesome as the first one. Their advent taught Bernie and me that love stretches both our hearts and our walls, and a heart so enlarged can never return to “small” again.
Like St. Anne’s relationship to Jesus, a grandmother is linked to her grandchildren through their mother. In her children, each mother plants and tends beautiful flowers that grace her own marriage and her whole extended family.
These children also call forth the gifts of spiritual motherhood and grandmotherhood on the part of women who cannot be physical mothers. In His last earthly moments, Jesus gave St. John to His Mother, and she took him into her heart. Just so, Mother Mary adopts each of us, her children on earth.
In the same way, adopted children and grandchildren are also held close in the heart of the grandmother and nourished there.
The generosity of Mother Mary reminds us, as grandmothers, to set an example of formation and hospitality, just as she honored the care and desire of her Son. Mary’s fiat did not preserve her from anxiety and loss, though.
When she was a young mother with a 12-year-old son, Mary experienced the worry and panic of losing her child in the city of Jerusalem. Every mother knows the joy she must have experienced when He was in her arms once again! Like Mary, we grandmothers also need to receive and ponder such experiences in our hearts.
Years are maps of transition and new insight. From the start, we always wanted and prayed for a large family. God certainly answered our prayer! Looking back over the family God has so richly given to us, what advice would I give as a Catholic Christian grandmother? Keep praying, and God will honor your prayers. One way He wishes to honor those prayers is by helping us foster relationships with our children and grandchildren. We often pray for the energy to keep doing this important work.
As grandparents, we seek to be with our grandchildren whenever we can, to listen and care for each of them and especially to foster their Catholic spiritual life. We offer the quiet yet proven wisdom of age to our grandchildren as they date and discern their vocations. We encourage them to pray about those vocations.
We love taking our grandchildren to Mass, Adoration, Holy Hours, Right to Life activities, youth ministry opportunities, leadership activities and service to the poor. As a young mother, I confronted the culture of death wherever I could as a religious educator, pro-life activist and founder of Bethesda post-abortion healing ministry.
Now, as a grandmother, I don’t shrink from conversations with my older grandchildren about controversial topics. I love discussing the problems in the culture to which they are exposed, as well as possible solutions to those problems – topics such as gender ideology, the breakdown of marriage, the importance of chastity and God’s plan for human dignity and sexuality, as well as the sad consequences of accepting the pro-contraception and pro-abortion attitudes so pervasive in our time.
But whenever possible I seize the opportunity to simply be there with my grandchildren – talking in the car on the way to an activity, attending their concerts and recitals, encouraging their music and their education and supporting their parents during this most challenging time in our world.
As grandparents, we must stay well-read and informed to do the Lord’s work in our families. We must continue to nourish our own faith, perhaps by forming small faith communities or reading groups. These can also be a topic of conversation with our grandchildren or simply an example to them that faith stays young and active even in old age.
If we love Jesus and our grandchildren, never giving up hope and rejoicing in His plan for them, we will often find new awareness and good opportunities to influence and support them as they grow.
Years ago, two of our children placed a stenciled message over our back patio door that has blessed us many times over and serves as a reminder to all: “Grandparents Home: Where cousins go to become best friends.” Amen, let it be so!
Judy Schlueter is a parishioner at Columbus St. Patrick Church and the former executive director of Bethesda Healing Ministry.