Throughout history, the great transformations and movements within the Church have always come from outside the expected channels. First man creates a problem, and then God, in his infinite wisdom, provides a solution. If the problems today are greater than ever before, then God will raise up saints greater than ever before.

How can we help God raise up this next generation of spiritual leaders? We start in our own families, as mothers and fathers, to raise our children as saints. 

For inspiration, we can look to Saints Joachim and Anne, the parents of the Virgin Mary.

Tradition holds that Joachim and Anne were devout Jews who struggled with childlessness into old age. They prayed to God that if he gave them a child, they would dedicate him or her to God’s service. And God gave them Mary. They began fulfilling their vow by educating Mary in the history of Israel and all the great heroes of the faith who had gone before. When Mary was of age, her parents presented her to the Jerusalem Temple, where she received a religious education. 

And when God asked Mary to bear his only son, she was ready to say yes. Her greatest teachers on earth were her own two parents: Saints Joachim and Anne.

If we wish to raise up a new generation of saints, there is an indispensable ingredient. We must tell the stories of the champions and heroes of Christianity who have gone before us.

There is no medium more powerful than stories to convey a message. Our two-thousand-year Catholic history is full of extraordinary stories about ordinary people who opened their hearts to God and allowed the life, teachings, and person of Jesus Christ to transform them. These men and women are the heroes and heroines of our faith; they are a rare gift of inspiration, and we have failed as a Church to tell their stories. 

Read your children stories of the saints.

It is true our modern culture is guilty of telling horrific stories that promote violence, sexual promiscuity, and every manner of sin known to man. But we have contributed to this problem because, as a family of faith, we are guilty of not telling the great stories of our spiritual ancestors, the saints.

The lives of the saints are stories of virtue and character, and if we would read them, tell them, and listen to them over and over again, our lives would become examples of that same virtue and character.

We become the stories we listen to.



Feast Day: July 26

Feast Day Shared By: Blessed Titus Brandsma

Patron Saint of: Fathers and Grandfathers (Joachim), Mothers, Grandparents, Pregnant Women, Children, Unmarried People, Teachers, Child Care Providers, Lost Things, Loving Homes, Poverty, Sterility

Also Known As: The Parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Grandparents of Jesus

Symbols: Holding the Child Mary