Highlights from the September 2026 Grandparents Faith Café – with Lorene Hanley Duquin
Highlights from Our September Faith Café
The Grandparent Vocation
A Call to Love
Tuesday, 8 September 2026 · Lorene Hanley Duquin · Online via Zoom
There are dates that carry their own weight. On Tuesday, 8 September 2026 — the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady’s birthday — Grandparents from Ireland, England, the United States and Australia gathered online for the September Faith Café. It is also the day, as Catherine Wiley tells it, that the Catholic Grandparents Association was first conceived, in the Slipper Chapel at the Shrine of Our Lady of Walsingham.
And by an accident nobody planned, Catherine was in Walsingham that very morning, having come in unexpectedly from Croatia two days before. She went to Mass in the Slipper Chapel, handed Pope Benedict’s Prayer for Grandparents to every person walking in, and stood on that ground, twenty-five years to the day, listening to it read aloud.
Our keynote speaker was Lorene Hanley Duquin — author of The Catholic Grandparents Handbook and some fifteen other books, and a much-loved friend of the Faith Café, joining us for the third time. Her subject was vocation. Her answer was love.
Six Reflections to Carry Home
■ Our vocation within our vocation is love. For Grandparents, that is the whole of the job description.
■ You do not have to feel the love to give it. Ask to be a conduit, as St Thérèse did, and let God love them through you.
■ Emptying comes before filling — and prayer is how it is done. Breathe. Look. Step into the fountain.
■ 1 Corinthians 13 is a yardstick, not a verdict. Read it in the first person and let it show you what to strive for.
■ There is no point in the argument. They will not come looking for an argument they lost. They will come looking for someone they trust.
■ Sowing is not the same as harvesting. A Grandchild still arguing with you is a Grandchild still coming to you.
“O Jesus, my Love, at last I have found my vocation. My vocation is love.”
— St Thérèse of Lisieux, Story of a Soul
Catherine’s Welcome: The Slow Part
Catherine began where the Association began. Twenty-five years ago, in that same chapel, she was by her own account not praying at all but wondering what Our Lady wore on her birthday, and what she might give her for a present. “So as far as I was concerned, I was distracted. I should not have been praying. Anyhow — here is the result of my distraction.” She spoke, too, of the Grandchildren who argue with her about the faith — ten of them, all grown, not one holding it the way she holds it — and of what she has learned from that. “There is no point in the argument. I have tried it. Raised voices, shouting, nobody converted. All that happens is that something gets damaged between you, and that is far too high a price.” What is left is simpler and harder: keep believing, let them see you pray, and love them with no conditions attached and no disappointment in your face. “Because if they ever do come looking — and I believe some of them will — they will not come looking for an argument they lost. They will come looking for someone they trust.”
“Twenty-five years on, that is the whole of it. We are still praying, and they are still coming. And if you are carrying the same quiet ache, you are among friends here.”
— Catherine Wiley, Founder
The Address — Lorene Hanley Duquin
A Vocation Within Our Vocation
Catherine had proposed vocations as the September theme and then told Lorene she could speak on anything she liked. Lorene came straight back: vocations. “I really believe that our vocation as Grandparents is grounded in love.”
Some of us understand our vocation as married life, some as the single life, some as religious life. But Lorene came at it from a different angle: the idea of a vocation within our vocation. St Thérèse of Lisieux described it perfectly in Story of a Soul. She had her vocation as a Carmelite nun, and still something left her restless. She felt drawn to something more, wrestled with it a long time, and arrived at a startling conclusion — that her vocation within her vocation was love.
To say what that looks like in practice, Lorene reached for a quotation — and found it, she said, from the perfect person. Catherine Wiley, in The Catholic Grandparents Handbook:
“It is a work that calls for great sensitivity, delicacy and thoughtfulness. It is unobtrusive, never overbearing, always respectful of the rights and values of others, especially of the parents. It involves always being at hand when needed, but never imposing oneself. Never interfering. Knowing when to offer a helping hand or a word of advice, but also knowing when to stand back. This is indeed a demanding programme, but it is important to stress that we are doing something vital for God.”
“I love them, but I don’t like them very much right now”
It is not easy, and Lorene did not pretend otherwise. Life happens. Emotions run wild. “Sometimes it feels really easy to love our children and our Grandchildren. Other times — I don’t know about you, but I find myself saying, I love them, but I don’t like them very much right now.”
She told the story she has told the Faith Café before, about the ten-year-old Grandson who was afraid she was going to die and asked her how much time she thought she had left — and then announced that he already knew what he would say at her funeral. She could not resist asking. He said: I’m going to say, she loved me so much. And she thought, that will be my legacy.
“But that was then, and this is now. That Grandson is now a teenager, and he is not speaking to me, because I did not do something he wanted me to do.” Does he still love her? She is sure he does. He is just angry. Does she still love him? Of course — though she is really disappointed in how he is behaving. “I know he is going to come around eventually. I just hope it happens before he has to talk at my funeral.”
Becoming a Conduit
Which raises the hard question: how do we love unconditionally, the way God loves us unconditionally? Once again St Thérèse supplies the answer. There was a nun in her convent whom she disliked intensely — one who, she wrote, “had the faculty of displeasing me in everything, in her ways, her words, her character.”
Thérèse recognised that God loved this nun, even though she herself could not like a single thing about her. So she let Jesus make her a conduit, so that God’s love would flow through her and stream to this sister. She could not love the nun herself — but God could love the nun through her. And in the process she came to recognise the presence of Jesus in her.
“We can ask the Lord to make us instruments of his love to our children and our Grandchildren. But before we can do that, we have to be emptied. We have to empty ourselves of all the things that keep God’s love from flowing through us.” And that, she said, is not as difficult as it sounds — because we can do it through prayer.
Three Prayers to Take Home
Lorene led the gathering through three prayers. All three are simple enough to teach a Grandchild, and all three are given here so you can pray them again at home.
One — The Breathing Prayer
Close your eyes. Take a deep breath in, and imagine you are breathing in God’s love. Then breathe out any tension or anxiety you brought with you today. Breathe in God’s love — breathe out worry. Breathe in God’s love — breathe out negativity. Breathe in God’s love — breathe out any anger or resentment you are holding on to. Breathe in God’s love — breathe out pain. Breathe in God’s love — breathe out anything in you that is not of God. Now simply breathe, and imagine God’s love flowing through you.
A great prayer to teach Grandchildren: before a test, before a match, when something painful happens. You do not have to close your eyes — Lorene prays it at the dentist, and in traffic.
Two — The Prayer of the Loving Look
Imagine that you are filled with God’s love, and beam that love at whoever you are looking at. Practise it at Mass, at the sign of peace. Practise it in the grocery store, or as you pass someone in the street. “You can become an instrument of God’s love by just beaming God’s love to anyone, anywhere.”
Later in the evening, Lorene added a variation that came out of the conversation: it could equally be the Prayer of the Loving Touch.
Three — The Fountain Meditation
Close your eyes and breathe. Imagine you are in a lift, going down into the deepest part of yourself. The doors open and you are in a meadow. The sun is shining, and in the centre of the meadow is a fountain, its water falling softly, more like snow than rain. Step into the fountain. It is a fountain of God’s love, pouring down all over you.
Ask God to wash away anything troubling you: resentments you are holding on to, fears and worries, any useless guilt. Then bring your Grandchildren into the fountain, and ask God to pour his love down on them, to wash away whatever frustrations lie between you, to guide them and protect them. Bring in your children and the rest of your family, and ask God to heal any divisions and wash away tensions. Bring in anyone who is sick or hurting, and ask God to heal them with his love.
Then you are alone in the fountain again. Cup your hands, gather the water, and drink. You are completely surrounded by God’s love, and completely filled with it. If there is anything else you want to say to God, say it now. Then step out and come back to the surface — carrying God’s love inside you, and able to bring it to other people.
Lorene prays this one in the shower each morning: “I ask God to wash away all of the crud from the day before, and fill me with love, and give me a new start.”
A Yardstick, Not a Verdict
Any teacher will tell you that learning something new requires assessment. So how do we know whether we are becoming instruments of God’s love? Lorene turned to St Paul’s letter to the Corinthians — love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous, it is not pompous, it is not inflated, it is not rude — and then did something with it.
“It is one thing to read somebody else’s words. But we test ourselves by putting ourselves into that passage.” I am patient. I am kind. I am not jealous. I am not pompous. I do not brood over injury. My love for my Grandchildren never fails.
“Do I pass this test? Absolutely not. Absolutely, positively not.” But she can strive for it, and that is what the passage is for. “It is a yardstick I use to measure myself. And the best part is that I know I can use the Sacrament of Reconciliation. I know that I can breathe out anything in me that is not loving. And I can go back to the fountain of God’s love, to ask for renewed strength and guidance.”
“Lorene, I am still in that fountain of love. I can’t come out.”
— Catherine Wiley
Moments from the Floor
The conversation that followed ran for the best part of an hour, and ranged from Pennsylvania to Mauritius. Here are some of the highlights; the full discussion is available in the session transcript.
“I Think I Have Failed” — and the Door Being Held Open
After Mass that morning Catherine had tea with her friend Margaret, a woman in her late eighties who has lived in the village all her life, and whom Catherine calls one of the holiest people she has ever met. Margaret said: I don’t know what I have done, but I feel I have failed. My children and Grandchildren aren’t interested. There are so many distractions.
Catherine’s reply was not comfort so much as company. “Margaret, mine don’t drift off. Mine argue with me. Yours are distracted — mine are the opposition.” And then she offered a different reading of the same facts. Your Grandchildren still come to you. They still love you. They still want to be in your home. “That is not failure, Margaret. That is the door being held open.”
In a great many families the conversation has stopped altogether, everyone keeping off the subject to keep the peace. A young person who can say out loud what they really think, and not be shut down, is a young person who has left the door open — whether they know it yet or not. “I don’t think I am failing. I used to. I think I am doing the slow part.”
Grandparents Are Heroes, and Are Commissioned to Mission
Catherine shared two phrases from Father Willie Purcell, who chairs vocations in Ireland, and who happened to be speaking on the same subject on the same day. “Catherine, Grandparents are heroes.” And: Grandparents are commissioned to mission. “It is not just any old job. It is not just the only job you can never retire from. It is a mission. And Grandparents are missionaries — not missionaries out in the field, but missionaries in the home, where it matters most.”
“Manifest” — and How to Say That You Pray
Daniel M. asked how we tell our Grandchildren that we are praying for them as they meet the rough patches of young adult life. Marilyn Henry described overhearing her adult Grandson tell his father, I’ll manifest that for you — and asking him later, gently, whether he prays. He answered honestly: not really, though he still holds the values he was taught. So as he left, she told him: every day I pray for you, and when I can’t hug you like this, my prayers can reach you.
Lorene does the same, and adds the detail: “I tell them, when I am saying the Rosary every day, this is the place in the Rosary where I pray for you. Some of them care, some of them don’t, but at least they know. And nobody has ever said to me, stop praying for me.”
Angela W. wrote in the chat that her Grandchildren know she keeps a daily list, with a specific day for each family. Even if they never pray for themselves, they like being on the list.
Holding a Face
Catherine described Brenda, a woman of 103 in Walsingham who is blind now and sits at the back of the church. “I love the touch of her skin. And even though she is blind, I can see the love in her eyes. She holds me, and she remembers me. That is love. You haven’t even got to open your mouth to know love, to show love.”
It was the image that travelled furthest that evening. Geraldine D.: “When I see my Grandchildren now, I am going to make the effort to actually hold their face and look into their eyes. That touch is something I haven’t done intentionally as a Grandparent.” Deacon Tom and Carol O. said much the same of Freddie, their two-year-old Grandson, whom they take to daily Mass: “I love that thought of holding his little face and just looking at him.”
And Marilyn remembered her youngest daughter as a small girl, grabbing your face to be heard: look at my eyes, look at my eyes. She is in her forties now, and they still say it.
Converted at Sixty-Five — On Planting Seeds
Dawn M., from Austin, Texas, was confirmed only three and a half years ago, so being a Catholic Grandparent is new to her. She spoke frankly about the word manifest, having come out of a good deal of New Age practice herself: there is a reason it can raise the hair on the back of your neck. It is very self-centred.
“I didn’t really hear or listen to God’s voice and become a Catholic until I was sixty-five. So when I am with my family, who are not Catholics, I realise it is just my job to plant seeds, and God is the one who makes those seeds grow. If he could convert me at sixty-five — I will not see the results of the seeds I planted, but it doesn’t stop me planting them.” She shared, too, that her family had let her take her young Grandsons to Mass, which was huge.
The Seeds Go Deep
Catherine answered Dawn with a story from the week before. Her Grandson had brought his friend Tom out on holiday, and one evening Tom came into the kitchen to tell her about his Grandfather, who had lived with the family and died a couple of years ago. Passing his bedroom door at night, Tom had once heard him talking, looked in, and found him on his knees, praying for God to protect his family. The Grandfather had no faith. He never went to church. “And I said, Tom, that’s wonderful. It was probably in him. It probably came down from his parents, his Grandparents. But it was in him.” Catherine’s conclusion: “All I can do is sow the seeds, and I will probably never live to see them reaped. But one thing you can be absolutely sure of is that they go deep. And they will flourish one day, in ways you might never dream of.”
Age Is an Advantage
Ron and Mavis P., joining from Australia, pushed back on the idea that age is something to apologise for. “In our society you tend to think that if someone is old they are a bit past it. But our age also gives us an advantage. Just the simple fact that we are married — we have been married sixty-seven years. That in itself is an extraordinary thing. It is a great gift from God, and we should be confident about it. And the fact that we have faith. People might think we’re old-fashioned, because nowadays people don’t pray so much. Yes, but they have an innate feeling that there is something good about it.”
They also brought news: an inquiry has come to the CGA from the Marriage and Family Life office in Mauritius, after Ron and Mavis spoke at a conference there. They want to start a ministry.
An Irish Wolfhound, Sixty Years Apart
Betty M. had three celebrations in one day: her eldest Grandson’s wedding, her own sixtieth wedding anniversary, and her youngest daughter’s birthday. Her Grandson asked her to do a reading. She thought the text he sent was a little cold, so before she stood up she prayed: Jesus, please make this warm. Just make this get to people’s hearts. When she finished she looked over, and the couple were crying. And then a coda: on her honeymoon sixty years earlier she had been photographed at the top of a castle with an Irish wolfhound. At the wedding, a lady was walking the castle grounds with an Irish wolfhound — who was persuaded up twenty-five steps, so the photograph could be taken again, sixty years later.
A Connection of Spirit, Felt at Ten
Lynn S., in Australia, spoke at a Faith Café for the first time. Mother Teresa — whose feast fell on 5 September, days before — took the name Thérèse after Thérèse of Lisieux, and love was her great catch-cry. When Lynn was in Year 6 at Loreto Kirribilli, saying the Rosary in the garden overlooking Sydney Harbour, Mother Teresa visited and met the girls one by one. “She held my hands, looked me in the eyes, and there was a connection of spirit that I felt when I was ten. I will never forget it.” She and her siblings had just completed a fifty-four-day Rosary, finishing the day before Our Lady’s birthday.
One Our Father
Catherine also told the gathering about the penance she had been given that morning, after asking one of the Marist Fathers to hear her confession. One Our Father. He asked her why he had given her that prayer, and she said, because it surrenders my will. He said no — say the first line. Our Father, who art in heaven. And who are you? If he is your Father, who are you? She said: I am his daughter. “And he said: no. You are his lovely daughter. You are his really lovely daughter. And I don’t want you to forget that.”
Stay in the Conversation
Catherine passed on advice she had been given: let them enjoy you. “As soon as they ask you something and you open your mouth, don’t immediately try to improve them.” And a companion rule, for all of us: when somebody tells you they are not well, stay with them for a second in that conversation. “Don’t move on to your own story, or a story about somebody else. Don’t try to top them or better them.”
“We are in England, we are in Australia, we are in America, we are everywhere. And we are all joined just because God is love.”
— Catherine Wiley
Faith Café Resources — September 2026
Lorene Hanley Duquin
Download the full session transcript or watch the replay at your own pace. The transcript is freely available to all. The replay is accessible to registered members.
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Mentioned This Evening
The Catholic Grandparents Handbook by Lorene Hanley Duquin — used by many of our ministries, and the book that first brought Lorene and the CGA together.
Story of a Soul by St Thérèse of Lisieux — the source of both quotations at the heart of the evening.
The Prayer for Grandparents of Pope Benedict XVI — read to open the evening, and handed to every person entering the Slipper Chapel that morning.
1 Corinthians 13:4–8 — St Paul’s yardstick, to be read in the first person.
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Coming Next
Next Grandparents’ Faith Café
Tuesday, 13 October 2026
Keynote Speaker: Jim Mackey, Cuan Mhuire
On addiction in families, and the hope that runs through the generations
Register Now — Free‘God is love, and whoever remains in love remains in God.’ — 1 John 4:16
The word the September Faith Café ended on
Catholic Grandparents Association
Passing on the Faith and Keeping Prayer at the Heart of Family Life