Back in January 2020, on the cusp of the pandemic, Pope Francis opened a conference on “The Richness of Many Years of Life” by calling for “a serious reflection to learn to grasp and to appreciate the value of old age.” What elders need is not just pastoral care but meaning. He offered this scriptural reflection on the meaning of old age:
“In the Bible, longevity is a blessing. It confronts us with our fragility, with our mutual dependence, with our family and community ties, and above all with our divine sonship. In granting old age, God the Father gives us time to deepen our knowledge of him, our intimacy with him, to enter ever more into his heart and to surrender ourselves to him. This is the time to prepare ourselves to deliver our spirit into his hands, definitively, with childlike trust. But it is also a time of renewed fruitfulness. “They still bring forth fruit in old age” says the psalmist (Ps 92[91]:14). God’s plan of salvation, in fact, is also carried out in the poverty of weak, sterile and powerless bodies. From the barren womb of Sarah and the centenarian body of Abraham the Chosen People was born (cf. Rom 4:18-20). From Elizabeth and the aged Zechariah, John the Baptist was born. The elderly person, even when weak, can become an instrument of the history of salvation.”
Our very own grandmother, Sr Evelyn, made this concrete in the reflections she gave us a year or two ago, since published by the NRRO. For her, Milestones of Growing Old include becoming like a little child, little enough to find the small door that God opens, having closed a big one, little enough to notice the small gifts God strews in our path and greet them with wonder and gratitude. Another milestone is the ability to recognize God’s presence, drawing closer in one’s old age, even as regrets and discouragement threaten to seep in. She says:
“I was truly blessed to come across a prayer by our Cistercian Father Baldwin of Ford, who knew fallen human nature so well. “I have grown old among my enemies within. Deliver me from myself.” Oh, what joy to see this so clearly now that I am older, as I recall rash judgements, anxieties, hurts, childishness and so on, all from the enemy within of self-love, self-centeredness and of course, pride. This might sound depressing, but it is not so; it brings so much freedom with its truth. Moreover, I join others in saying that if I knew then what I know now, life could have been so much simpler and more straightforward. And yet in reality, the wisdom we now possess comes from the ups and downs, the twists and turns that have made up our past life. Our life has been our education in wisdom. We see this now, and we rejoice in finding the glass of our life half full, rather than half empty.”
At this moment, well into our second year of disruption due to COVID, Pope Francis turns once again to the elderly, this time with a direct, personal address to “Grandmothers and Grandfathers, Dear elderly Friends,” “as Bishop of Rome and an elderly person like yourselves,” reassuring them with the words of Christ: “I am with you always” (Mt 28:20). The pope says we are to be comforted by the Lord’s faithfulness, his presence, because he never, ever goes into retirement. Once again, he emphasizes that old age is not only a time of passive diminishment, but of becoming an instrument in God’s hands, an instrument for the history of salvation.
“Think about it; what is our vocation today, at our age? To preserve our roots, to pass on the faith to the young, and to care for the little ones. Never forget this.”
The elderly among us are not just receivers of care, but givers of hope. They are needed. I remember receiving a Christmas card from one of the brothers at Vina, bearing a community photo. I was so struck by the “shape” of the community – the number of elderly brothers, physically vulnerable, bent and wrinkled, with faces full of gentleness – and the number of younger brothers, strong, hopeful, but spiritually vulnerable. I wrote to the brother to tell him this, and his response was: “What will we do without them?”
Pope Francis calls upon the elderly to live their mission in three ways: to dream, to remember and to pray.
Dreams – “Your old men will dream dreams and your young men will have visions” (Joel 3:1). The dreams Pope Francis speaks about are of a better future, a more just world. They are the fruit of long experience of God’s fidelity in drawing them through hardship to something new. They come from insight into the heart of God and the seed of goodness planted in the human heart. This is what gives strength to the vision of the young whose work is to put this into practice.
Memory – painful memory is the foundation on which to build: the memory of war inspires us to work for peace; the memory of our failure to protect the vulnerable inspires us to create a more humane world. Out of the crisis of the Foot and Mouth epidemic in 2001 came the beginning of a new flock and a new way of farming (new to the young farmer, but familiar to his ancestors) which integrated the wisdom of the ages with the conditions of the present time. Out of the crisis of the sexual abuse of minors by ministers of the Church comes a new focus of safeguarding the vulnerable, changes in the formation of those called to ministry and a new generation of vocations to the priesthood who freely, and bravely step into the role with a profound sense of the call to follow in Christ’s footsteps, caring for the little ones. Out of the crisis of the pandemic will come a changed world, in ways that we have yet to see realized, but in which we have confidence in God’s hand at work.
Prayer – the pope quotes his predecessor, Pope Benedict, who said “the prayer of the elderly can protect the world, helping it perhaps more effectively than the frenetic activity of many others.” The reality of this intercessory mission inspires trust, hope, confidence. Like Charles de Foucauld, the hermit of the Sahara, any one of us may become a universal brother or sister from our solitude.
It is not only the elderly who may ask, with Nicodemus: “How can a man be born when he is old?” How can God’s Spirit create something new in my old life, with all my past failures and present fears? How can God’s Spirit create something new in this world grown old in sin, in which even the young collapse at the street corners from apathy and hopelessness? “It can happen,” says Pope Francis. It can happen if we are open to the freedom of the Spirit, if we are open to learn from the tragedies that have befallen us a new way of living in solidarity. It can happen if we draw strength for the future from the wisdom, fidelity and hope of our elders. The point I think Pope Francis wants to make is that it is not adequate to say “the past belongs to the old and the future belongs to the young” – both past and future belong to all of us. We need each other.
I invite you to listen to the voice of our grandmother, Sr Andree. In an interview with a psychiatrist back in the 90’s, her voice rings out with authentic conviction. She speaks of the absolute necessity of a sense of humor, so that she can laugh at her own bloopers and accept herself in incompleteness; she speaks of great gratitude for all the gifts God has given her in her life and draws strength and courage from his fidelity; she speaks of compassion for and deep solidarity with the suffering people of the world, in the Holy Spirit who indwells us all. Do you remember the words Sr Andree chose for her jubilee card? – “Still full of sap, still green.” Here is a woman with an adventuresome heart, an openness to the new things the Spirit is doing, and a willingness, a desire to be an instrument of the history of salvation! I think these words from Psalm 92 encapsulate the encouragement and challenge Pope Francis is offering to the elderly and indeed to all of us on this day:
“Planted in the house of the LORD,
they will flourish in the courts of our God,
still bearing fruit when they are old,
still full of sap, still green,
to proclaim that the LORD is good.
In him, my rock, there is no wrong.”
(Ps 92:14-16)