First of all, your granddaughters are not responsible for missing Mass if their mother does not make it possible for them to go. Any responsibility for the situation is your daughter’s, not your granddaughters’. So, if this is something that has concerned you, please do not worry that your granddaughters are in any way culpable for the situation. As a matter of fact, if your daughter has been skipping Mass during these trips for some innocent reason (e.g., not being able to find a church nearby), she herself may not be culpable for skipping Mass while on a trip.
Secondly, I cannot recommend confronting your daughter in such a way that makes it obvious that you learned from your granddaughters that she is not taking them to Mass. This may cause her to caution her daughters not to talk about their religious life with you and you don’t want to be cut out of the loop on their spiritual development and education. For the sake of maintaining your knowledge of your granddaughters’ religious education and development, and for the sake of avoiding your daughter believing that you are pumping her daughters for information about their Catholic observance, I recommend a different tactic.
Ask your daughter, as casually as possible, about their Mass observance when they visit the girls’ father. For example, after they get back from a trip, you might ask your daughter (outside of your granddaughters’ presence) *where – *not *if *-- she is taking the girls to Mass. If it comes out that she is experiencing trouble finding a Mass to which she can take the girls, offer to help locate one. If it comes out that she believes it okay to take a vacation from Mass when out of town, then you can talk with her about that. In other words,
first establish facts and
then work on solutions.
Recommended reading:
**
Search and Rescue **by Patrick Madrid
God Help Me! These People Are Driving Me Nuts by Gregory K. Popcak
