Fr. Joseph V. McCabe, M.M. 

While accompanying Cardinal Jozef Tomko on an extensive pastoral visit to the Northwest Territories of Canada some 15 years ago, I was introduced for the first time to the traditions surrounding the parents of the Virgin Mary, Saints Joachim and Anne, and their veneration as the “forebearers of God,” or more simply as Jesus’ grandparents. These celebrations are highly anticipated among the First Nations peoples of North America and held annually in midsummer (July 26th) with a pilgrimage drawing thousands to Lac Ste. Anne in Alberta.

At this annual pilgrimage on the shores of the lake over 40,000 First Nations families gather each summer for a week-long celebration of these saintly grandparents of Jesus, camping on the shores of this mission founded in 1842, and celebrating the virtues and values associated with grandparents (such as care, wisdom and love), rededicating themselves as families and as peoples to deeper respect for their traditions, their faith, and those moral standards and ideals that uphold family life.

In the cultures of the First Nations peoples, it is the grandparents who are the primary teachers of their grandchildren. Traditionally the parents would have been busy outside of the village compounds from morning to night hunting, farming, herding, and providing for their families. The children would be left inside the compound with their elderly grandparents, who would use this time for instruction in language, skills, folklore, and above all, in faith.

Many years later, while serving as the pastor of a small community in Khabarovsk, Russia, I learned quickly enough of the deep faith and courage exemplified by so many grandmothers in the religious formation and upbringing of their grandchildren. Often risking banishment, imprisonment or even death, grandmothers living behind the “Iron Curtain” maintained the religious fervor of their children and grandchildren, passing on to them rudimentary forms of prayer, pious practices and devotions, and instilling in them that same faith in God that they received from their own grandmothers. Cardinal Tomko often told me stories of how women in his own country of Slovakia kept and passed on the faith. But now in Khabarovsk I saw living testimonies to this courage in the faces of my parishioners.

And so, taking a cue from my experiences on Lac Ste. Anne, I began to celebrate this Feast of Sts. Joachim and Anne in my parish in the Russian Far East as a time for thanking all of the grandparents who took up the cross of Christ in a unique way, using all of their gifts to pass on to their grandsons and granddaughters the faith they had received from their own grandparents, keeping faith alive even under times of bleak tyranny. I had the privilege of meeting men and women who were baptized in secret by their grandmothers, and who were raised as Catholics in the concealment of their homes, learning prayers and hymns by rote memory, keeping small religious articles such as rosaries or prayer cards hidden under floorboards or behind armoires in their homes, gathering in the stillness of night to secretly observe Christmas or Easter, always with the fear of one or another grandchild or neighbor exposing them or reporting them.

Meeting these strong grandparents both in the Northwest Territories of Canada and in the Russian Far East (as well as grandparents in almost all mission territories), I have come to learn how important saints such as Sts. Joachim and Anne are for us in our faith formation. Do we respect and honor our grandparents as those great custodians of the faith that they have been for us? Do we keep as a treasure in our hearts the values they so patiently instilled in us? Do we show that same reverence and esteem for this faith they handed down to us as an invaluable treasure?

Missioners are privileged to share in such life stories. I was honored to participate in the Feast of Sts. Joachim and Anne, the Grandparents of Jesus, at Lac Ste. Anne some 15 years back, and I was humbled meeting the babushke and dyadushki of my parish in Russia who so daringly overcame enormous obstacles to pass on the faith to their grandchildren, showing a love that goes beyond physical care to one that cares for nourishing the soul.

During these summer months, let us reflect on the example of faith we have from our grandparents and in some way show our thanks for all they have done – and do even today – for us.