August 1, 2021 - "Our Older Generation"

Last Sunday was the first World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly.  Pope Francis has recognized that this time is marked by a pandemic and by the suffering of our older generations in every part of the world.  The fact that many elderly people have had to die alone and then not be able to have a funeral has been a source of deep pain in the Church. It has certainly been a source of deep pain here in the parish.  This was one of the crosses of our time that came to mind during the Way of the Cross led by Pope Francis on Good Friday this year.  During that solemn time of prayer one person reported the following:  “People jumped out of the ambulance dressed like astronauts, wearing protective suits, gloves, masks, and face shield.  They took away my grandfather who had been having difficulty breathing.  That was the last time that I saw my grandfather.  He died a few days later in hospital.  I think of how lonely he must have felt.  I couldn’t be near him physically to say goodbye and comfort him.”
 
To be unable to be close to those who suffer is at odds with a Christian’s calling to show compassion.  The World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly is an opportunity to reaffirm that the Church can never remain distant from those who carry a cross.  Pope Francis chose as a theme for this First World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, “I am with you always.”  Hopefully this expresses clearly the desire during the pandemic and in the better times that hopefully will follow that every ecclesial community will want to be with the elderly always.
 
This first World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly is being celebrated midway through the year dedicated to family by the Holy See on the fifth anniversary of the apostolic exhortation Amoris Laetitia. The Holy Father chose this theme because he is aware how the elderly—all the elderly, including those who are not grandparents—need a family environment in which to live, and also how it is necessary for families to become aware of the role being played by their older members.  In our world today, the relationship between the elderly and families is no longer taken for granted but constantly being called into question.  Recurring features of this suggest that there may be a crisis underway between the elderly and the family, a sign of the times that must be taken into account.  Because family pastoral work is often concerned with couple relationships or those between parents and children, it can be difficult to focus on the relationship between elderly parents and adult children or between grandparents and grandchildren.
 
Pope Francis wrote about this in the encyclical Fratelli Tutti. Let’s recall what he said there:
 
“We have seen what happened to the elderly in certain places in our world as a result of the coronavirus.  They did not have to die that way.  Yet something similar had long been occurring during heat waves and in other situations where older people found themselves cruelly abandoned.  We fail to realize that, by isolating the elderly and leaving them to the care of others without the closeness and concern of family members, we disfigure the family itself.  We also end up depriving young people of a necessary connection to their roots and of wisdom that the young cannot achieve on their own” (FT 19).

These are important words that deserve to be pondered again.  They can help us to reflect on the debt that families—and family pastoral care—own to a generation that has in some respects fallen into oblivion.
 
Let me close this column today by printing a prayer that was prepared for the first World Day of Prayer for Grandparents and the Elderly:
I thank You. Lord for the comfort of your presence: even in times of loneliness, You are my hope and my confidence, You have been my rock and my fortress since my youth!
 
I thank You for having given me a family and for having blessed me with a long life.  I thank you for moments of joy and difficulty, for the dreams that have already come true in my life and for those that are still ahead of me.  I thank you for this time of renewed fruitfulness to which you call me.
 
Increase, O Lord, my faith, make me a channel of your peace, teach me to embrace those who suffer more than me, to never stop dreaming and tell of you of your wonders to new generations.
 
Protect and guide Pope Francis and the Church, that he light of the Gospel might reach the ends of the earth.  Send your Spirit, O Lord, to renew the world, that the storm of the pandemic might be calmed, the poor consoled and wars ended.
 
Sustain me in weakness and help me to live life to the full in each moment that You give me, in the certainty that You are with me every day, even until the end of the age.  Amen.
 
Until next week,
Fr. John