Full message of the Pope for the World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly

MESSAGE FROM THE HOLY FATHER

World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly

“I am with you every day”

Dear grandparents, dear grandmothers:

“I am with you every day” (cf. Mt 28,20) is the promise that the Lord made to his disciples before going up to heaven and that today he also repeats to you, dear grandfather and dear grandmother. To you. “I am with you every day” are also the words that as Bishop of Rome and as an elder like you I would like to address you on the occasion of this first World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly . The whole Church is close to you – let us say better, it is close to us – it cares about you, loves you and does not want to leave you alone!

I am well aware that this message comes to you at a difficult time: the pandemic has been an unexpected and violent storm, a harsh test that has hit everyone’s lives, but that for us seniors it has reserved special treatment, one more treatment Lasted. Many of us have become ill, and so many have left or seen the lives of their spouses or loved ones die. Many, isolated, have suffered loneliness for a long time.

The Lord knows each one of our sufferings of this time. He is on the side of those who have the painful experience of being left behind. Our loneliness – aggravated by the pandemic – is not indifferent to him. A tradition tells that Saint Joaquin, the grandfather of Jesus, was also separated from his community because he had no children. His life – like that of his wife Ana – was considered useless. But the Lord sent an angel to comfort him. While he, saddened, remained outside the gates of the city, an envoy of the Lord appeared to him and said: “Joaquín, Joaquín! The Lord has heard your insistent prayer ”. [1] Giotto, in one of his famous frescoes, [2] seems to set the scene at night, in one of those many sleepless nights, full of memories, worries and desires that many of us are used to.

But even when everything seems dark, as in these months of pandemic, the Lord continues to send angels to console our loneliness and repeat to us: “I am with you every day.” This he says to you, he says to me, to everyone. This is the meaning of this Day that I wanted to celebrate for the first time precisely this year, after a long isolation and a still slow resumption of social life. May every grandfather, every old man, every grandmother, every elderly person — especially those who are lonelier — receive the visit of an angel !

Sometimes they will have the faces of our grandchildren, other times the faces of family members, lifelong friends or people we have met during this difficult time. In this time, we have learned to understand how important hugs and visits are for each of us, and how it saddens me that in some places this is still not possible!

However, the Lord also sends his messengers to us through the Word of God, who never leaves it lacking in our lives. Let’s read a page of the Gospel every day, let’s pray with the Psalms, let’s read the Prophets. We will be moved by the faithfulness of the Lord. Scripture will also help us understand what the Lord is asking of us today for our lives. Because he sends workers into his vineyard at all hours of the day (cf. Mt20,1-16), and at each stage of life. I myself can testify that I received the call to be Bishop of Rome when I had reached, so to speak, the age of retirement, and I already imagined that I could not do much more. The Lord is always close to us — always — with new invitations, with new words, with his consolation, but he is always close to us. You know that the Lord is eternal and never retires. Never.

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus says to the Apostles: «Go and make all peoples my disciples, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to do all that I have commanded you. »(28,19-20). These words are also addressed to us today and help us to better understand that our vocation is to guard the roots, transmit the faith to the young and care for the little ones. Listen well: what is our vocation today, at our age? Guard the roots, transmit the faith to the young and take care of the little ones. Do not forget.

It does not matter how old you are, if you continue working or not, if you are alone or have a family, if you became a grandmother or grandfather when you were young or old, if you are still independent or need help, because there is no age at which you can withdraw from the task of proclaiming the Gospel, from the task of transmitting traditions to grandchildren. It is necessary to get going and, above all, to get out of oneself to undertake something new.

There is, therefore, a renewed vocation also for you at a crucial moment in history. You may wonder: but how is it possible? My energies are running out and I don’t think I can do much more. How can I begin to behave differently when habit has become the norm of my existence? How can I dedicate myself to the poorest when I already have many concerns for my family? How can I broaden my gaze if I am not even allowed to leave the residence where I live? Isn’t my loneliness already too heavy a burden? How many of you ask yourself this question: my loneliness, isn’t it too heavy a stone? Jesus himself heard a question of this type from Nicodemus, who asked him: “How can a man be born again when he is old?” ( Jn3,4). This can happen, the Lord responds, opening one’s heart to the work of the Holy Spirit, who blows where he wants. The Holy Spirit, with that freedom that he has, goes everywhere and does what he wants.

As I have repeated on several occasions, from the crisis the world is in, we will not come out the same, we will come out better or worse. And “hopefully this is not another severe episode in history that we have not been able to learn from —we are tough-minded! – Hopefully we don’t forget the elderly who died for lack of respirators […]. I hope that so much pain is not useless, that we take a leap towards a new way of life and finally discover that we need and owe each other, so that humanity is reborn »(Enc. Letter Fratelli tutti , 35). No one is saved alone. We are indebted to each other. All brothers.

In this perspective, I want to tell you that you are necessary to build, in fraternity and social friendship, the world of tomorrow: the world in which we, and our children and grandchildren, will live when the storm has subsided. We all “are an active part in the rehabilitation and aid of wounded societies” ( ibid ., 77). Among the various pillars that should support this new construction there are three that you, better than others, can help to place. Three pillars: dreams , memory and prayer . The closeness of the Lord will give the strength to undertake a new path even to the most fragile among us, along the paths of dreams, memory and prayer.

The prophet Joel once made this promise: “Your old men will have dreams , and your young people will have visions” (3.1). The future of the world lies in this alliance between the young and the old. Who, if not the young, can take the dreams of the elderly and carry them forward? But for this it is necessary to continue dreaming: in our dreams of justice, peace and solidarity there is the possibility that our young people have new visions, and together we can build the future. You also need to testify that it is possible to come out of a difficult experience renewed. And I am sure that it will not be the only one, because you will have had many in your life, and you have managed to get out of them. Also learn from that experience to get out of it now.

Dreams, therefore, are intertwined with memory. I think about how important the painful memory of war is and how much new generations can learn from it about the value of peace. And it is you who transmits it, having lived through the pain of wars. Remembering is a true mission for every older person: memory, and bringing the memory to others. Edith Bruck, who survived the tragedy of the Shoah, said that “even illuminating a single conscience is worth the effort and pain of keeping alive the memory of what has been” and continues. For me, memory is living ». [3] I also think of my grandparents and those of you who had to emigrate and know how hard it is to leave home, as so many still do today in search of a future. Some of them, perhaps, we have by our side and they take care of us. This memory can help build a more humane world, more comfortable. But without memory it cannot be built; without a foundation you will never build a house. Never. And the foundations of life are memory.

Finally, the prayer . As my predecessor, Pope Benedict, a holy elder who continues to pray and work for the Church, once said: “The prayer of the elderly can protect the world, helping it perhaps more incisively than the solicitude of many”. [4] He said this near the end of his pontificate in 2012. It is beautiful. Your prayer is a very valuable resource: it is a lung that the Church and the world cannot deprive themselves of (cf. Apostolic Exhortation Evangelii Gaudium , 262). Especially at this difficult time for humanity, as we cross, all in the same boat, the stormy sea of ​​the pandemic, your intercession for the world and for the Church is not in vain, but indicates to all the serene confidence of a place of arrival.

Dear grandmother, dear grandfather, at the end of this message I would also like to point out to you the example of the blessed – and soon a saint – Charles de Foucauld. He lived as a hermit in Algeria and in this peripheral context he bore witness to “his desire to feel any human being as a brother” (Enc. Letter Fratelli tutti , 287). His story shows how it is possible, even in the solitude of one’s own desert, to intercede for the poor of the whole world and truly become a universal brother and sister.

I ask the Lord that, thanks also to his example, each one of us will broaden his heart and make it sensitive to the sufferings of the little ones, and capable of interceding for them. May each of us learn to repeat to everyone, and especially to the youngest, those words of comfort that we have heard addressed to us today: “I am with you every day.” Go ahead and cheer up. May the Lord bless you.

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