How God Keeps His Promises

“But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear. Amen, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.” (Mt 13:16-17)

My dear brothers and sisters in the Lord, we must take these words from Jesus as a reprimand and an invitation to constant gratefulness. As a reprimand, because we are so totally immersed in God’s grace and favors that we might fail to fully appreciate them, the way abundance and assurance of food can by viscerally appreciated only by those who experienced real hunger.

And gratefulness—for the same reason. 

We have grace and God’s favors in such abundance that we might overlook some, even if we try to come up with an accurate list:

The Body and Blood of Christ in Holy Communion; the Words of life proclaimed and broken down into small, digestible bits at the Table of the Word and (in a perhaps more intimate way) whenever we open the Bible at home, silently prodded by the Holy Spirit; the support of the Community of believers assembled to help us with an increase of faith, hope and charity; the many healing touches of the Lord, codified in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and Anointing; good priests who assist us in many ways; the warmth and the comfort we find in our family; those people the Lord hurries to send to us whenever the trials of life get too trying; and the list goes on.

On the feast of St. Joachim and of St. Anna (July 26th), we are bound to see how much more blessed we are than the grandparents of the Lord Jesus. By the liturgy they are grouped together with our godly ancestors of the Old Testament. In Joachim and Anna, we see how God keeps his promises and sustains the hopes of those who believe in them.

Joachim and Anna were among the first ones. Imagine their dignity: think about how, through their marital intimacy, Joachim and Anna conceived Mary. For nine months, Mary grew in Anna’s womb without original sin. The dignity of Joachim and Anna: their blood ran through the veins of the Blessed Mother and the same blood then runs through the veins of Christ Jesus. That blood is most precious as it is forever the blood that washes away the sins of the whole world and sanctifies all those who believe in God’s promises of salvation.

All those among you who are grandparents can identify with St. Joachim and St. Ann and be inspired by their ordinary daily life. Imagine they might have taught Jesus about the Torah, taught him some psalms, taken him for walks, maybe played with him, answered some of the questions that his inquisitive mind must have brought up. In a word, they must have done what you do with your grandchildren.

They did not know how close they were to the fulfillment of God’s promises in their very grandson!

We must wonder what Joachim and Anna would have done with the graces and favors the Lord keeps pouring on us, because so much better was their inner disposition! Their spiritual wealth remains with us and is meant to increase. Their virtues are set as an example for us to imitate.

Thus, as we praise God for this celebration of St. Joachim and of St. Anna, to make them more relevant for our spiritual life, we want to thank the Lord for the virtues our own grandparents left with us as they aged: their simple, childlike faith, their tried and proven wisdom, their experience, their calmness while facing trials and the reassurance they instilled in us whenever we felt troubled and unsettled.

May St. Joachim and St. Anna, Jesus’ own grandparents, inspire all of us to decipher even the most ordinary things in life and be able to see how often the Lord is blessing us and bringing us the comfort and the guidance that we need.