Grandpa’s Watch: A New Year’s Confession

My grandparents’ home held many fascinations.

The gray-shingled parsonage contained old stamp albums and metal tackle boxes with bright lures bearing fierce barbed hooks. Gorgeous marbles rolled around in a battered metal tin. Real cornhusk dolls and a reedy African rattle were not withheld from curious fingers.

When our family came for overnight visits, my parents took the guest room and Grandpa moved cots next to his and Grandma’s bed for my brothers and me. Grandma entertained us with stories of her childhood as we slid slowly toward sleep. In the final silence at the close of those enchanted days, I listened, eyes closed, as Grandpa wound his watch–ch-ch-ch–before placing it on the dresser so it would still be keeping time in the morning when he’d wind it once again.

Many years later, sometime in midlife and a decade or so after my grandfather’s passing, I came upon a reference to the winding of clocks in St. Frances de Sale’s Introduction to the Devout Life.

And I remembered Grandpa’s watch.

I had come to the French saint known as the “Doctor of “Love” by way of my literary hero, C.S. Lewis. For most of my adult life I’d managed to read or reread at least one of his books a year, and this particular January I was reading a collection of Lewis’ letters when I took note of the books he recommended to friends.

“Do you read St. Frances de Sales?” Lewis inquired of a correspondent suffering through a difficult time. “He has good things to say on the subject.”

Hmm. If Lewis thought highly enough of St. Frances de Sales (whoever he was) to recommend him to friends, I figured I would give him a try.

It would be a turning point in my spiritual life.

I chose de Sales’ Sermons for Lent as my spiritual book for the coming season, and by the time I’d finished those sermons I was wondering what it meant to be the kind of saint de Sales clearly was.

Then I turned to Introduction to the Devout Life and found there the warm plan for growing in holiness C.S. Lewis had recommended. Its kindly instruction was written specifically for lay people like me who, despite plenty of sin and imperfection, wanted to grow closer to God.

I’m the daughter, granddaughter and great-granddaughter of Protestant preachers. My grandparents had always tried to live this way and so did my parents. Following their example, I rather unwittingly acquired the habit of daily prayer after challenging myself to complete a Bible-in-a-year chart in the back of a paperback edition I’d received on on my 16th birthday. I attended church wherever my husband and I moved after we married, and I supplemented my daily Bible reading with other spiritual works. But living up to the things I believed was an entirely different story.

I had many aversions to Catholicism and didn’t expect a book by a Catholic to have much to say to to me. But through the prompting of Lewis the Mere Christian, I allowed St. Frances de Sales to speak to my hungry heart.

Introduction to the Devout Life is a classic for a reason.

Frances de Sales has a winsome balance between gentleness of heart and uncompromising Christian standards. He points out right away how easy it is to think one is devout simply by mastering a preferred set of rules but without controlling the tongue or overcoming one’s temper, obvious qualities of one who loves well.

He had suggestions for better retaining and applying my morning Bible reading (check) but he said that regular prayer at the end of the day was important as well, something I’d only done in the most haphazard of ways. De Sales advised something more regular, arguing:

There is no clock, no matter how good it may be, that doesn’t need resetting and rewinding twice a day, once in the morning and once in the evening.

Clearly, de Sales lived before the invention of the battery and long before the digital age, but I was instantly transported to the old bedroom where Grandpa wound his watch.

It’s amazing how God can take an old memory and, with perfect timing, “instantly” infuse it with grace.

Still, I continued to be hit and miss with prayer at the end of the day until well after my conversion to Catholicism, when a priest simply advised me to take up the Liturgy of the Hours’ office of Night Prayer, with its built-in examination of conscience, short and easily added to my routine. I gave it a try and gradually, the a twice-a-day-rhythm became ingrained.

But Frances de Sales wasn’t finished with his clock analogy.

In addition, at least once a year it must be taken apart to remove the dirt clogging it, straighten out bent parts and repair those worn out. In like manner…a person who really takes care of his heart…must take it apart and examine every piece in detail; that is, every affection and passion, in order to repair whatever defects there may be.

I don’t know if Grandpa took his watch for an annual cleaning but it wouldn’t surprise me. He was a gentle, orderly man. And the application to the spiritual life rings true. Introduction to the Devout Life even contains a handy list of questions for examining the soul.

And so at the end of this old year and beginning of a new one, I find myself once more remembering Grandpa’s watch.

My New Year’s confession is that I go to confession, despite my friends (both Protestant and even Catholic) who tell me it isn’t necessary.

St. Frances de Sales slowly convinced me of the importance of the sacraments in the Christian life which, it turns out, the Anglican Lewis also took seriously. Though he never converted to Catholicism, Lewis went to an Anglican priest for confession in a sincere desire to follow all the practices of the ancient church. He really was more than a mere Christian.

As for me, a few years after first reading St. Frances de Sales, I took the step Lewis was never able to make and was received into the Catholic Church. I began making the Sacrament of Reconciliation a regular part of my life. To those who tell me it isn’t strictly necessary, I’d simply reply that there are biblical grounds for the practice, and that forming the (mostly monthly) habit has been a great blessing in my life, one that I warmly recommend.

Why? Because there is great freedom in habitually returning to the Father in this embodied, sacramental way.

The word return is carefully chosen.

Frances de Sales is famous for the reminder to be patient with one’s soul and, like the rewinding of a clock, just keep coming back.

Meanwhile, it’s sweet to remember my grandfather and the ch-ch-ch winding of his watch. He lived to 94, the longest of all my grandparents. Grandpa spent the last 20 years of his life in my parents’ home and when my brothers and I were young adults, he regaled us, as Grandma had done when we were children, with stories with of his youth.

Among other things, we learned that our dad’s father had once crossed the Niagara River on ice floes. His brother had Earl had witnessed the feat, and added that traffic along the river that day was slowed while people watched Grandpa’s athletic figure as he made it to the other side.

Memory is a wonderful gift.

Along with the mischievous twinkle in his eye, Grandpa retained his love for the Scriptures and prayer to the end. A retired minister himself, he attended my pastor father’s church every Sunday and sang the hymns from memory.

If any of us ever forgot to say the blessing at mealtime, Grandpa quietly closed his eyes and offered it in silence. I’m eternally grateful for the example of that prayerful, playful man.

He’s still helping me keep watch over my heart.

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You might also enjoy End the Year on the Path to the Ever-Ancient, Ever-New Normal and Nazi Prison New Year: The Integrity of Alfred Delp.

You can find Frances de Sales’ 10 question “Examination of the Soul’s Condition as Regards God” from his Introduction to the Devout Life here.

How are you ending the old year and beginning the new one? I’d love to hear from you!

Images by Pexels and Andreas Zimmermann on Pixabay.