21 Where She Saw Light: Sacrament and Environment

I was a student in Religion and Environmental Values in America in the Spring of 2025 during my second year majoring in Environmental Policy and minoring in Soil Science at OSU. This piece is written from a view of personal history and culture, and serves as an analysis of my relationship with faith and my grandmother. Writing this allowed me to reflect on how her Catholic beliefs influenced not just how she lived, but also in values that were passed down to me, unknowingly. In…read more.

My grandmother, Marie, was the matriarch of my family and an anchor of strength and tenderness. As I am named in her honor, I try to carry the values she lived by and feel compelled to share her story, especially as I continue to navigate the grief of her passing. My grandmother was half Romanian and Italian, born in Youngstown, Ohio, where she met my grandfather and raised four children. She found joy in simple pleasures such as Sunday pasta dinners, pig figurines, old Italian records, card games, dancing, gardening, traveling, but above all, her family. I spent much of my childhood in her ranch-style home with a backyard that served as a playground for both her dog and grandchildren. It was there under the backyard trees, by the hydrangea bushes and tomato plants that I first understood tending the land as an act of love and stewardship to my grandmother’s relationship to her God. The backyard and garden were not just a pastime, it was a space of care, beauty, and sacred rhythm. In her small corner of the world, I witnessed what the Church might call a sacramental relationship with creation; to live gently, gratefully, and rooted in place.

Especially after her passing, I tried to find more ways in which I could continue to be like her and keep her close by wearing her jewelry, listening to her records, and making her recipes. But it wasn’t enough to simply mimic her habits; I wanted to carry forward the love and wisdom she gave so freely to others and to the land. In that process, I began to recognize the subtle but powerful presence of her faith, which is something that I had long overlooked. My grandmother was Catholic, which is different than the rest of my family. I was raised Lutheran by my mother and passed through Sunday School like a ritual I never quite absorbed; I often wonder what might have been if what I learned then had stuck. The differences between our faiths were not just denominational, they shaped how we each related to the world. Lutheranism, in my experience, felt more abstract and restrained, more focused on word and doctrine than physical ritual. There was not much that I found to be convincing for me to hold onto or something for me to relate to. In contrast, Catholicism centers on the sacraments, presence, embodiment, and grace woven into the material world (Pope Francis, 2015). At least in how I interpret my grandmother’s experience with Catholicism, her faith seemed to live in her hands and small rituals at home; in the sauce she stirred, the soil she turned, the way she crossed herself in quiet prayer at dinner. These were gentle rituals and sacraments that grounded her faith in the everyday. Though I never thought of her as overtly religious, I now see how deeply her actions and behavior were shaped by a Catholic worldview that honors the sacredness of daily life. Some of this I believe to be generational; she grew up in a world where faith was tightly intertwined with daily life, while I was raised in a time that is more skeptical of institutions. Perhaps too, it comes from her nature of being gracious and thankful. In her absence, I have found myself returning to her rituals, wondering how they might become a language for my grief and stewardship.

Catholicism is deeply rooted in a sacramental worldview where physical materials are not just symbolic but tangible signs of divine grace. The sacraments, such as baptism with holy water, the Eucharist with bread and wine, and anointing with oil, demonstrate how Catholicism intertwines the spiritual and material. Rather than viewing the physical world as separate from God’s presence, the Catholic faith embraces it as a means through which the divine is encountered. This belief extends beyond the sacraments themselves; it shapes a broader understanding of creation as infused with God’s presence (Pope Francis, 2015), although creation is not God Himself. This view is reflected in the Catholic understanding of the natural world as creation being inherently sacred. As Genesis 1:31 states, “God saw everything that he had made, and indeed, it was very good” (Bible Gateway, n.d.), affirming that all creation reflects the divine. Consequently, because the natural world is seen as God’s work, Catholic teachings call for respect and care for the environment, recognizing that nature is not merely a resource to be exploited but a reflection of divine goodness and presence (Pope Francis, 2015).

My grandmother’s home embodied this sacramental perspective. Her house was a space of warmth, hospitality, and care where her faith was embedded in the objects and routines of daily life. Music of Italian CDs and records infiltrated the rooms, birdhouses and cardinals decorated the yard, and pig figurines scattered in various forms throughout the house symbolized her connection to creation. In the front sunroom where she spent mornings drinking coffee, and in the backyard where huge hydrangeas, tomato plants, and the graves of beloved dogs were, the physical was always intertwined with meaning. Even after my grandfather passed, she took meticulous care of the house and lawn, tending to them with a devotion that could resemble an act of worship. The small daily rituals of tending to the lawn and garden, sweeping the patio, and decorating became a form of worship, turning her home into a sanctuary.

As a child, I had a rough time with the outdoors. I was particularly terrified of the less manicured part of my grandmother’s backyard. It was an area that had been left to grow wild with some poison ivy, graves of the dogs, and burn piles of accumulated sticks and branches she cleared. The swampy, untended area seemed threatening to me at the time and I tried to avoid it. Yet, I remember my grandmother with her patient kindness, reassuring me that nothing could hurt me because it was all God’s creation. Everything had its place in the world and a right to exist as much as I did when I visited it. Eventually, I overcame my fear of the weeds and squishy ground. My final visit to this part of the backyard was when my family was preparing to sell the house after her passing, felt surreal. Once again, I was bringing fallen branches to the burn pile, much less fazed by the dirt and weeds. That moment allowed me to also see how my grandmother moved through the world where forgotten parts of the yard had been cared for in some way; she had a kind of steady attention to things most people overlook.

This attentiveness to home, land, and people aligns with the moral philosophy of Iris Murdoch. Murdoch asserts that morality is rooted in attentiveness to something greater than oneself; it is a recognition of the contingency of our existence and the deep connection between love and perception (Hauerwas, 1972). My grandmother’s faith was not just about church attendance or doctrine, it was about how she saw the world, how she treated her home as sacred, and how she extended care to both people and the land. Her care for the land and for her family reflects the kind of moral attentiveness Murdoch describes, where recognizing grace in world becomes an act of worship.

Additionally, the Eucharist is central to Catholic teachings as it is an act of thanksgiving which acknowledges both divine grace and sustenance provided by creation. This sacrament is an acknowledgment of God’s goodness where the elements of bread and wine, fruits of the earth and human labor, are something sacred. In receiving the Eucharist, Catholics participate in a deeply relational act that connects the spiritual and material and underscores the importance of thanksgiving. This Eucharist reflects the Catholic view that nature itself is a gift, meant to be honored rather than taken or exploited and humans are called to recognize it and give thanks for it (Pope Francis, 2015).

I believe that the practice of receiving Communion shaped my grandmother’s outlook on the world, reinforcing the idea that meals, sustenance, and even the smallest provisions in life were meant to be received with appreciation. These values were evident in the way she approached food and family traditions where each meal was not just a routine but an act of care and blessing. I vividly recall my childhood memories of my First Communion, Palm Sunday, Easter, and Christmas, often held at my grandmother’s house, which reinforced this understanding. Before eating, we would always pause to pray, which set the tone for the meal, reminding us that we should be grateful. Even small items like Jordan almonds or the Italian olives my grandmother would always bring for me from the deli, carried some kind of symbolic weight, connecting me to both my heritage and a deeper sense of sacredness and thanksgiving in the everyday.

Dinners at my grandmother’s house were more than family traditions, as she carried a deeper respect for sustenance. Her home was a place where food was never wasted, leftovers were repurposed, and recipes were carefully passed down. The house buzzed with sounds of the family: loud Italians, clinking of wine glasses, music, and the energy of little cousins running around. I could always sense that my grandma enjoyed being a host, finding joy in providing for her children and grandchildren, seeing everyone together and sharing precious moments. Those dinners and evenings at her house were my favorite; the kitchen smelling of heavy garlic and homemade sauce, playing with an old broken Hangman set, checkers, Old Maid, and Lite Brite remain symbols of these family gatherings. When I came across these items again sorting through the house, I struggled to let them go; they smelled like the house, mothballs and all, but they reminded me of the rituals of our family, where nothing was wasted and everything was shared. My cousins and I even found ourselves playing with them again after her passing, as if drawn back to the communal spirit we had always known at the house.

This practice of gratitude rooted in the Eucharist mirrors a Catholic ethic of stewardship and care for creation. The simple act of sharing a meal in this context is not just an act of nourishment, but a sacred moment to acknowledge the interconnectedness of all things. Catholic social teachings on hospitality and care for the environment emphasize that food is a gift that requires devotional care and stewardship, not waste. In contrast, modern consumer culture normalizes excess and waste, treating food as disposable rather than sacred and a gift from God. David Loy (2010) critiques this modern notion, arguing that consumer culture fosters a sense of separation, where people are encouraged to consume without considering the origins of or consequences of what they take. He notes that modern society has lost a sense of the sacred, replacing spiritual fulfillment with material accumulation (Loy, 2010). Similarly, Genesis 2:15 states, “The Lord took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to till it and keep it” (Bible Gateway, n.d.), calling humanity to tend to creation rather than exploit it. In a world where convenience often leads to waste, my grandmother’s practices with a spirit of thanksgiving served as a quiet form of resistance, one rooted in faith, stewardship, and an awareness that all things are connected.

After my grandmother’s funeral and as I sorted through her belongings, I began to wonder what she thought about each day and kept for going especially after my grandfather’s passing. Her passing is the first family death where I had the full capacity to understand what was happening, and only over a year later, I still have a lot of questions and struggle to sort through my thoughts. I remember sitting on her bed after the funeral, looking at all the jewelry in her jewelry cabinets, the hundreds of individual boxes and costume jewelry, when I came across her rosaries. The rosary concept for me was slightly foreign at the time, as I didn’t have one nor did I know how to pray by the rosary, and I was confused as to why she never talked to me about it. Still, I now keep two of her rosaries in my dresser at home in their precious pouches, one in genuine leather from Italy; the rosaries themselves are gorgeous, one in black beads, the other in pink. When I remember that I have these, sometimes I will take them out to just look at them, but I don’t like keeping them out or holding them for too long because I don’t want my skin or the air in my room to overtake what was her presence in them. So, I put them back quickly to preserve them. My mother keeps a silver crystal rosary of hers as well which she held during the funeral, and I am just fascinated by its symbolism and how I only saw these as associated with my grandmother during her death. I never saw her rosaries or heard her talk about them until after she passed.

Among other things I discovered after she passed was a note in the sun visor mirror of her car, stating that she was of Catholic faith and that if something were to happen, to call her priest. Another thing my mother found was a sick call set of a wooden crucifix with a hidden opening. Inside were two holes to hold candles, a bottle of holy water, and Last Rites, or sacraments or prayers a priest would perform for the anointed. A nativity scene my grandfather made is another item my family now keeps. As a custodian for Youngstown City Schools, newly married to my grandmother, and with little money, he took wooden chair legs from the various schools he worked at, nailed them together, and found toy figures of sheep, a camel, and donkey to resemble the inn where baby Jesus was born. This has been the same nativity scene my grandmother had under her Christmas tree every year and usually made me set it up while I pricked my fingers on the nails poking out of the roof of the inn.

Inheriting and discovering some of my grandmother’s belongings has made me think deeply about the role her Catholic faith played in her life, and subsequently in mine. Further, these items connect to Catholicism’s sacramental view of the world where the physical and spiritual are intertwined. This same idea is echoed in Laudato Si’ (2015), which calls for seeing creation as sacred and caring for the environment as a moral responsibility. Just as my grandparents found purpose in repurposing materials and making do with what they had, Laudato Si’ (2015) urges us to reject a throwaway culture and embrace sustainability. The nativity scene that now sits under my Christmas tree, reflects a faith that values both tradition and stewardship of the Earth.

Witnessing the way my grandmother lived her life offered me a glimpse of what it means to see the world eucharistically. For her, faith was not something abstract, it was lived, shared, and expressed through gratitude for creation and care for others. Yet, while I admire this in her, I recognize how far I often feel from that kind of faith or way of thinking. Where she saw God’s presence in the ordinary, I struggled to see anything at all.

I grew up going to a Lutheran church, attended Lutheran preschool and daycares, Sunday school, had my First Communion, and was confirmed in a Methodist church. Even as a child, I remember trying so desperately to grasp what was meant by God, heaven, hell, sin, and just this simple belief that God is good and therefore, all creation is too. It was a lovely concept that I tried to live in; I loved helping in my Methodist church for years with Vacation Bible School, food drives and famines, youth group, church bands, and volunteering. But the belief in God was never quite rooted in me, and I often felt like I was faking something by being in the church—pretending, performing something that I could not genuinely feel.

In time, I looked elsewhere for comfort or ways to cope with the anxieties of the world that didn’t require a belief in a divine being. But I couldn’t hold onto that trust either and found myself rather dismissive of religion as a concept, a system, and even part of an identity for some. I couldn’t believe in something that I couldn’t see or prove. Maybe my issue is that I didn’t allow myself to see in the way that my grandmother did; to see grace in the mundane, to let meaning emerge through gratitude rather than certainty.

She seemed to have no trouble trusting in God and must have seen something I never did. If I could understand what she saw when she prayed, when she gave thanks before meals, or when she brought olives just for me, maybe I could come closer to understanding what faith meant to her, and maybe I could find a version of it that feels true for me.

Faith, for many, has been a refuge in times of grief, offering structure and meaning when loss feels overwhelming. Both my grandmother and I turned to faith more closely in moments of sorrow, though in different ways. Religious rituals like prayer, sacraments, and weekly mass acted for her as a grounding force that provides a sense of continuity in times of uncertainty. Reinhold Niebuhr (1964) describes faith not as a tool for controlling life’s hardships but as a response to them, offering solace amid suffering. For my grandmother, this was especially true after my grandfather passed. In the wake of his loss, I watched her participation in Catholicism deepen through attending mass more frequently, joining women’s church groups, and spending more time in her garden, tending to the earth with the same care she once gave to her home and family.

Thinking about her faith also made me wonder about mine, particularly the tensions between trust in God and the desire for control, which Niebuhr describes. My relationship with faith becomes more complicated as I consider Niebuhr’s arguments, where his critique is not of those who try to care for themselves in times of difficulty or doubt, but of the fear that drives us to believe that we must be the only ones in control. The sin of pride then, lies not in tending to grief but in closing ourselves off from any trust in something beyond the self, or God. I’ve often felt caught in this tension. In trying to soothe my anxieties or make sense of loss that does not have to do with God, am I refusing what I was taught all those years ago? Why don’t I go back to something that can help me with my doubts? I wish it was that easy. This question complicates my relationship further; if I can’t believe fully, what is the purpose of trying only sometimes? Does this make me a fake Christian? Does it make me not appreciative of what God does for me, and others? Does it make me selfish to pray in times when I am desperate? I don’t think Niebuhr would answer with condemnation, but his framework forces me to confront the space between doubt and trust. Still, I found myself turning to God again after my grandmother’s death as I wanted to try to process it in a way that could make me closer to her. If faith is a form of reaching, then perhaps that was mine.

One of the most enduring images I have of her grief is the way she honored my grandfather’s memory in small, persistent ways. She always kept a prayer candle burning at his grave, placed wreaths there during the holidays, and my family arranged red and white carnations there during Christmas. I remember walking into her house as a child one day asking, “Where is Grandpa?” and my grandmother told me simply that he went to Heaven. I remember imagining his spirit, a faint blue-colored outline floating from his red recliner and through the front screen door up to the sky. I was too young to understand grief, death, or God at four years old. All I knew was that he wouldn’t be there to chase me around the house anymore and that my mother and grandmother were sad. Even though I don’t remember him well, I keep a photo of him holding me in a flower costume for a Halloween parade in the mirror of my dresser. It’s become a small ritual of my own, one of many I now recognize as attempts to stay close to people I’ve lost.

I understand now how her rituals gave her comfort, a tangible way to maintain a connection with him even after he was gone. When she passed, I found myself grappling with my understanding of loss. At her burial, the cemetery was muddy, the ground unsettled, making it difficult to walk. It felt chaotic and disorienting, much like grief itself. But when I returned this last Christmas, the earth was settled, the grass regrown, and the landscape softened. There was something both unsettling and reassuring about it, a reminder of the natural cycle of return. Genesis 3:19 states, “For dust you are, and to dust you shall return,” a verse that underscores the inevitability of decay and renewal, going back to the earth from which God originally made humans. In both faith and nature, death is not an ending but a transformation, an idea that my grandmother seemed to understand intuitively, finding peace in the rituals that honored both life and loss. I now have my own rituals to continue to remember her. I wear some of her charms on my Italian charm bracelet every day. I keep some trinkets of hers in my room so when I look at them every day, I am reminded of her. I like looking at her handwritten notes and recipe cards and I try to think of how pretty her writing was. I try to prepare food the way she taught me, drink coffee after dinner, and eat olives and kumbits. I try paying attention to birds the way she did. I try listening to her favorite music and dance funny.

Growing up, I was often skeptical of religion, seeing it as more of a set of traditions than something personally meaningful. But in reflecting on my grandmother’s life, I’ve come to understand faith differently, not as a rigid belief system, but as a source of comfort, connection, and meaning. While I may not fully embrace Catholicism in the way she did or even go to church regularly any more, I recognize its power to shape people’s perspectives, especially in how they navigate loss, gratitude, and their relationship with the world.

For Marie, her faith was never just a doctrine, it was about family, purpose, and a deep sense of gratitude for what she had. It was woven into the way she prepared my favorite pasta dinners, cared for her home, and honored my grandfather’s memory. Catholicism’s sacramental view shaped how she interacted with both nature and people. This perspective offers something valuable even outside of religion, a way of seeing the world as sacred where nothing is disposable and everything carries meaning. In an era where consumer culture often prioritizes short-term happiness over care, this mindset feels increasingly rare. My grandmother’s faith in God, her family, and the Earth has left me with an understanding that religious values are deeper than just a belief; they provide comfort in rough times and guide how we live and interact with the world. And in the quiet moments when I remember her home, her garden, and the rituals that shaped her life, I see glimpses of the sacred she once saw so clearly.

References

Bible Gateway. (n.d.). Retrieved March 20, 2025, from https://www.biblegateway.com/

Hauerwas, S. (1972). The Significance of Vision: Toward an Aesthetic Ethic. Studies in Religion/Sciences Religieuses, 2(1), 30–47.

Loy, D. (2010). Healing Ecology. Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 17, 251–267.

Niebuhr, R. (1964). “Man as Sinner.” In The Nature and Destiny of Man: A Christian Interpretation, Vol. I. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 178-207.

Pope Francis. (2015). Laudato Si’: On care for our common home. Vatican Press.