Pope: The elderly can still proclaim the Gospel and pass their dreams to young people
Francis released a message for the first World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly. Young people can carry forward seniors’ dreams of justice, peace and solidarity. Plenary indulgence will be granted to the faithful who on that Day "devote adequate time to actually or virtually visit[. . .] their elderly brothers and sisters in need or in difficulty.”
Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Pope Francis on Tuesday released a message for the First World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, set for 25 July, centred on “I am with you always” (Mt 28:30).
For Francis, grandparents, seniors in general, can, like himself, play an important role in society. In fact, he was called to serve as the Bishop of Rome “when I had reached, so to speak, retirement age and thought I would not be doing anything new.”
The pandemic, writes Francis addressing seniors citizens, was “a time of trial for everyone, but especially for us elderly persons”, a time of illness, death and solitude. But like with Saint Joachim, Jesus’s grandfather, God sent a consoling angel. “At times those angels will have the face of our grandchildren, at others, the face of family members, lifelong friends or those we have come to know during these trying times”.
“The Lord, however, also sends us messengers through his words, which are always at hand. Let us try to read a page of the Gospel every day, to pray with the psalms, to read the prophets! We will be comforted by the Lord's faithfulness. The Scriptures will also help us to understand what the Lord is asking of our lives today. For at every hour of the day (cf. Mt 20:1-16) and in every season of life”.
The Lord, who never “goes into retirement”, called on the disciples to baptise and spread the Gospel. Seniors have a vocation “to preserve our roots, to pass on the faith to the young, and to care for the little ones.” Indeed, “No one is saved alone. We are all indebted to one another. We are all brothers and sisters.
“Given this, I want to tell you that you are needed in order to help build, in fraternity and social friendship, the world of tomorrow: the world in which we, together with our children and grandchildren, will live once the storm has subsided.”
“Among the pillars that support this new edifice, there are three that you, better than anyone else, can help to set up. Those three pillars are dreams, memory and prayer.”
“The future of the world depends on this covenant between young and old.” Young people, who carry forward seniors’ dreams of justice, peace, and solidarity, can “have new visions” and “build the future”. Bearing witness is necessary.
“Dreams are thus intertwined with memory. I think of the painful memory of war, and its importance for helping the young to learn the value of peace. Those among you who experienced the suffering of war must pass on this message. Keeping memory alive is a true mission for every elderly person: keeping memory alive and sharing it with others.”
“I also think of my own grandparents, and those among you who had to emigrate and know how hard it is to leave everything behind, as so many people continue to do today, in hope of a future. Some of those people may even now be at our side, caring for us.
“These kinds of memory can help to build a more humane and welcoming world. Without memory, however, we will never be able to build; without a foundation, we can never build a house. Never. And the foundation of life is memory.”
“Finally, prayer. As my predecessor, Pope Benedict, himself a saintly elderly person who continues to pray and work for the Church, once said: ‘the prayer of the elderly can protect the world, helping it perhaps more effectively than the frenetic activity of many others.’ He spoke those words in 2012, towards the end of his pontificate. There is something beautiful here.
“Your prayer is a very precious resource: a deep breath that the Church and the world urgently need (cf. Evangelii Gaudium, 262). Especially in these difficult times for our human family, as we continue to sail in the same boat across the stormy sea of the pandemic, your intercession for the world and for the Church has great value: it inspires in everyone the serene trust that we will soon come to shore.”
In a note released today, the Apostolic Penitentiary issued a decree granting Plenary Indulgence on World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly “to the faithful who devote adequate time to actually or virtually visiting their elderly brothers and sisters in need or in difficulty (such as the sick, the abandoned, the disabled and other similar cases)” and to “the elderly sick and all those who, unable to leave their homes for a serious reason, will unite themselves spiritually to the sacred functions of the World Day”.
Lastly, Vittorio Scelzo, in charge of the office for seniors at the Dicastery for the Laity, Family and Life, said that the website of Amoris Laetitia will carry the Pope’s message “in video and printable version for seniors”, as well as “a prayer written for the occasion, a few pastoral suggestions on how to celebrate the World Day, liturgical notes and words by the Holy Father about seniors.” (FP)
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