Her faith was found in dusty inherited treasures

When I was a child, our family used to stop by my grandmother’s house every Sunday after Mass. My father had grown up in the big old house, which was just around the corner from our parish church.

He was the youngest of nine children, so by the time I was born, his father had already passed away and his mother was quite old. My parents and several aunts and uncles would gather around my grandmother’s rocking chair in the big kitchen, while the grandchildren ran noisily around the garden or quietly explored the attic, which held a hidden store of old toys and dusty treasures.

We weren’t allowed to play in the formal parlor where the furniture was carefully preserved in plastic dust covers, and the walls were decorated with framed images of Jesus, Mary and the saints alongside family photographs.

Several years later my grandmother died and her house was sold. My father was elected to do the job of clearing out the house and distributing what remained there. When all was finished, he ended up with a few boxes of odds and ends, including cranberry glass, kitchenware, and books along with several framed holy pictures.

Having rediscovered my Catholic faith not long before, I was interested in my grandmother’s Catholic treasures and browsed through what was left on a visit to my parents’ home. I chose a few items, including a little black prayer book and a picture of a nun holding a crucifix draped with roses. My father told me it was a picture of St. Thérèse. I didn’t know anything about her, but I was soon to learn.

When I got home, I hung the picture in my daughter’s room.

I discovered a Novena (9-day prayer) to St. Thérèse in the little prayer book and began to pray it. Soon, St. Thérèse began to make herself known to me in subtle ways—a holy card, a rose, or some reminder of her would appear unexpectedly in apparent answer to a prayer.

I began to think of her as a sister, watching over me and my family from heaven. A new awareness of the reality of the Communion of the Saints, mentioned every Sunday in the Apostles’ Creed, grew in my heart.

I learned about St. Thérèse’s “Little Way” of doing small things with great love. I began to study about her contemplative Carmelite spirituality, which ultimately enriched my prayer life and drew me closer to the Lord.

And so these little treasures, dusty and abandoned, turned out to be some of the greatest riches of my inheritance.

My grandparents were people of deep faith and I believe their prayers came along with these little items from their home. Perhaps their prayers from heaven had already helped me find my way back to the Church—to rediscover the greatest treasure this side of paradise, the body and blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in the Eucharist.

I may never know how much the prayers of all the saints have helped me until I reach heaven myself, through God’s grace and mercy.

Now I, in my turn, offer my prayers for my children and grandchildren to grow in faith, while always remembering to pray for the souls of my grandparents and all who have gone before me. I ask that they rest in eternal peace in the kingdom of heaven, where our true inheritance lies.