The Gift of a Grandmother’s Love

This post is based on Week One of An Ignatian Prayer Adventure.

There’s something special about a grandmother’s love. My mother was incredibly busy with a full-time teaching job and looking after the household. My grandmother, however, was always around, eventually coming to live with us on the family farm. Initially, however, she lived in the nearby town, and we kids would take turns living with her. One of my earliest memories is of attending Mass with her on a dark winter’s evening, the transept bathed in a warm, candlelit glow. It was a sensory experience of soft light, banks of devotional candles, incense, floor polish, gestures, and ritual. We were tucked into Grandmother’s favorite spot by the confessional box, and after Mass, I was given some coins to light candles for the “holy souls.” I waited patiently as my grandmother lingered in personal prayer. The smells, sights, and sounds combined to leave an indelible impression that has stuck in my memory ever since.

I sensed that something significant was happening for my grandmother and also for me. I knew that she was a woman of deep faith, having witnessed the evening Rosary she led and the personal prayers she made during the day. I knew beyond doubt that I was loved. I felt it concretely though her actions, and they pointed to a deeper source to which she was witnessing. This mysterious luminous presence that she reflected I intuited was somehow the God of love, who would show up more and more and eventually come to direct my life too.

I could see a powerful and inner personal prayer, but this flowed out into a life of self-giving service and care for the extended family. This was a woman who lived her life entirely for others and had very little for herself. There was a coherence between what she prayed and how she lived; it was to make a deep impression on me. Even now, almost 60 years later, I can recall that precious moment after Mass with clarity.

I trace my Jesuit vocation back to that experience and often go back to the memory, especially in tough times. It reminds me of who I am: the beloved, the product of a certain family, located in a concrete place and time. Most importantly, this was unmistakably true; I can trust this memory, this God of love, and this guidance through the inevitable ups and downs of life.

I was taught the importance of personal prayer as a deep, intimate, and personal connection with the source of our lives. Then I was taught that prayer has to flow outward into service and care for others. The notion of being instruments of God’s love has always struck me, and I ponder how the inner and outer dimensions work together. My experience with my grandmother was concrete, tangible, incarnate, and sacramental. It was tied to a person, a place, and an experience. This is what love looks like, foreshadowing what God’s love would come to be in my life.

Take a moment to remember similar moments in your life. What are those foundational moments of being loved?