Pope: A world day for grandparents and the elderly
It will be celebrated on the fourth Sunday of July, in correspondence with the memory of Saints Joachim and Anna ("Jesus’ grandparents", celebrated on July 26). "Old age is a gift and that grandparents are the link between generations, to transmit an experience of life and faith to young people ". “Listen to Jesus, the definitive prophet”, by reading the Gospel and carrying it with you, in your pocket or purse. The commitment to peace of the children of Catholic Action.
Vatican City (AsiaNews) - Pope Francis has established a World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly. Today, after the Angelus prayer in the library of the apostolic palace, taking his cue from the fact that on February 2, the feast of the Presentation of the Lord, we read in the Gospel of Luke (2, 25-38), that “Simeon and Anna, both elderly, enlightened by the Holy Spirit recognized Jesus as the Messiah. The Holy Spirit still arouses thoughts and words of wisdom in the elderly today: their voice is precious because it sings the praises of God and guards the roots of peoples. They remind us that old age is a gift and that grandparents are the link between generations, to transmit to young people an experience of life and faith. Grandparents are often forgotten and we forget this wealth of preserving the roots and passing them on”.
With this in mind he has decided to celebrate the World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly on the fourth Sunday of July, in correspondence with the memory of Saints Joachim and Anna (("Jesus’ grandparents", celebrated on July 26).
To help people understand the importance of this day, he quoted the prophet Joel in unscripted remarks: "grandparents will dream in front of grandchildren, they will have vision [great desires], and young people, taking strength from their grandparents, will go forward, and prophesy".
Previously, the pontiff had commented on today's Sunday Gospel (4th per year, B, Mark 1, 21-28), which tells of Jesus' teaching and the healing of a man possessed by an evil spirit. He invited to “listen to Jesus, the definitive prophet”, by reading the Gospel and carrying it with them, in their pocket or purse: an invitation that he often repeats.
He explained that in the Gospel passage we see "the two characteristic elements of Jesus' action: preaching and the thaumaturgical work of a healer". Jesus “preaches with his own authority, like someone who has a doctrine he draws for himself, and not like the scribes who repeated previous traditions and laws handed down. They repeated just words, words, words ... as the great Mina [a well-known Italian singer] said. Jesus' teaching has the same authority as God who speaks ... he is the definitive prophet ".
"The second aspect - he added - that of healing, shows that Christ's preaching is aimed at defeating the evil present in man and in the world. His word points directly against the kingdom of Satan, throws him into crisis and forced him to retreat, to leave the world. The obsessed one, reached by the Lord's command, is freed and transformed into a new person. Furthermore, Jesus' preaching belongs to a logic opposite to that of the world and of the evil one: his words reveal themselves as the upset of a wrong order of things”.
After the Marian prayer and the announcement of the Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, Francis invited some boys and girls of the Catholic Action of Rome to speak into the microphone (see photo). The little teenagers explained that they had worked in January on Pope Francis' Message for Peace to "cry out the desire for peace" to the world, despite the pandemic and all the obstacles to meetings. The theme they worked on was: “Peace makes news”. They have spread the message in their neighbourhoods with billboards and online meetings. A collection they held was used to help some families who have lost their jobs, in collaboration with the NGO Terres des hommes.
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