I just finished reading “Keeper of the Light: St. Macrina the Elder, Grandmother of Saints” by Bev Cooke about that most interesting woman, St. Macrina the Elder.

This is a person we’d all like to invite over for dinner. Born around 270, her spiritual father was St. Gregory the Wonderworker, her granddaughters were St. Macrina the Younger and St. Theosebia. Her grandsons were St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa. Now, seriously … isn’t that someone you’d just like to hang around and see what she’s putting in her oatmeal cookies?

The book is written in an easy “young-adult” style, filling in the many gaps in what we know with some poetic license, some educated guesses and some good storytelling. Macrina didn’t have it very easy — she and her husband and young son went from the cushy life of Roman citizens to seven years of vagabond existence as Christian exiles. However it was that she made it, she must’ve had a quality about her.

There’s something about grandmothers. I didn’t spend a lot of time with my grandmother Grace — we had one fine year when I could go visit her in her little farmhouse and climb her avocado trees and eat burnt popcorn (Grandma was a hapless and uninspired cook). But somehow or other she made an impression. She used to tell Bible stories when she was babysitting, but then she’d tell Bible stories when she did almost anything. She’d sing hymns when she washed the dishes and fed stray cats. Definitely a church lady. She didn’t live long enough to see me enter the Orthodox Church. Probably just as well. Grandma Grace was seriously Baptist. But I’d like to think that she wouldn’t be quite as scandalized by the icons and sacraments if I told her that we did it all because we loved Jesus.

So maybe that kind of grandmother is what St. Basil, Macrina the Younger, Theosebia and Gregory had. The kind we all need.

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By the way, I should mention that selling the books is a fundraiser for our women’s society (named after St. Macrina the Younger). I can’t say you couldn’t get them cheaper on Amazon, but if you want to help us out, we’re asking a donation of $17.50 per book.

That’s not why I reviewed the book, incidentally. I haven’t gotten that mercenary. But don’t grandmothers always try to teach you something about thrift — I’m doing two jobs for the price of one.