Eventide & Altar

Jesus tells his followers not to rehearse in advance what they will say if they are ever brought before authorities for their faith. The Spirit will give the words when they are actually needed, not before. Today is the memorial of Ignatius of Antioch, a bishop marched in chains toward his own martyrdom, who wrote letters the whole way rather than waiting until he felt fully ready.

Some of my own faith was built the same way Ignatius describes, not by rehearsal, but simply by being present and letting it happen around me. I spent summers as a boy at my grandparents' house, and my grandmother made sure I was always active in the parish life there, Vacation Bible School, the ice cream socials after the summer festival, being asked to lector at daily Mass even as a kid who could barely see over the ambo. None of it felt like formation while it was happening. It felt like a good summer.

Looking back now, decades later, I can see how much of what has held steady in me traces to those ordinary weeks, faithfully arranged by a grandmother who probably never thought of herself as building anything permanent. She was just making sure I showed up. If you have grandchildren, or any young person who trusts you enough to follow where you lead them, you may be doing exactly what she did, without knowing yet what it will become in them forty years from now.

Ephesians prays tonight that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened, so that you may know the hope to which you have been called. That hope was planted in plenty of people, including me, long before any of us understood what it was being planted for.

The Joyful Mysteries tonight, since it is Saturday. Offer the first mystery, the Annunciation, for every grandparent quietly building faith into a child who does not yet know what is being built.

• For grandparents and elders who pass on the faith simply by making sure the young are present for it, we pray to the Lord.
• For children being formed right now in ways they will not understand until decades later, we pray to the Lord.
• For all who have died, especially the grandparents and elders who first brought us to church, we pray to the Lord.

Call a grandchild, godchild, or any young person in your life today. Tell them one specific memory of doing something ordinary and faithful together, even if it seems small.