Have you a Grandma?

Continuing on with the book: St Anne, Grandmother of Our Saviour, Frances Keyes shares this article printed long ago in the Catholic View in Virginia USA:

Have you a Grandma? Here's an Idea for Tuesday.

"Do you still have a grandmother here on earth? If you do, you're lucky. Most of us who are a little older have long since lost our grandmothers - and now feel that loss keenly. But if your grandma is still around, why don't you figure out some especially nice surprise and then spring it on her this coming Tuesday? It will amaze her - naturally - when she sees you going out of your way to please her. And when she wants to know the reason why, you can explain that Tuesday is 'Grandmother's Day'. It's the feast of St Anne, the grandmother of Our Blessed Lord."

Then from the same book is a sermon preached by Rev Bernard Morisset, who enjoined his congregarion to consider St Anne in her role of a grandmother:

"It is this aspect of her personality that I wish to stress today," he said. "Grandmothers are educators of a very special kind. The experience of years, the courage which has been fortified through trial, the appeasement of violent passions, the necessity of adapting one's self to changing eras, the certainty that sunshine will always come after the storm: all these qualities give them a particular talent for dealing with children. Grandmothers have an art of their own; they are patient, gentle and long suffering when they take care of children and if they are sometimes inclined to soften parental discipline, they, nevertheless, get surprising results in controlling their small charges. Their method of education is efficacious; and what zeal they show when their grandchildren are sick and what prayers they offer when these cherished children do not always follow in the strait and narrow path! Really, grandmothers are so necessary to children they ought never to die!

My brothers, is St Anne not really the embodiment of the grandmother for all mankind, since Mary is the mother of all mankind? Think of the benefits attributed to her: she appeases Divine wrath, she heals the sick, she obtains the grace of conversion; and she is not only the grandmother who cares for our spiritual welfare, but who safeguards the well-being of the family household. The greatest grace which we can ask of St Anne is to preserve for these households the strength and the virtues which have characterized them in the past."

All I can add myself is, how beautiful and true those words are! As I watch my own mother help in the schooling my 6 year old boy in particular, I know this only too well. Of course, St Anne is 'the' perfect grandmother to us all, we are blessed indeed, especially if we call upon her!