Fostering intergenerational relationships

The pandemic we suffered in 2020 and 2021 has swept away many of our seniors and changed the way we work together. We find ourselves more alone and more isolated, but we must keep the hope of emerging with energy from this situation in a spirit of renewal.

Renewal involves reconnecting with society and integrating new generations of adults who are reaching middle age with a different cultural background from our own.

During these years, the Church, attentive to the evolution of society, sought guidance in the main events related to the secular apostolate, among them:

• Congress on the Apostolate of the Elders "The richness of many years of life". Held in Rome in January 2020.
• Congress on the lay apostolate "A Church on the Way Out". Held in Madrid in February of the same year.
• Fifth anniversary, on March 19, of the publication of the Apostolic Exhortation "Amoris Laetitia": on this occasion Pope Francis launched, until June 2022, the "Year of the Family", under the patronage of St. Joseph, with a proposal of 12 itineraries.

In each of these events, we are encouraged to strengthen the apostolate of the elderly and to renew ourselves through the promotion of intergenerational relationships, especially within the family.

Vida Ascendente is already an apostolate of the elderly and ensures that the role of the elderly is taken more into account within the Church by promoting the creation of dicasteries of the Apostolate of the Elderly person in each diocese.

We must now strengthen intergenerational relationships as an expression of the spirit of renewal with which we must emerge from the crisis of loneliness caused by the pandemic.

To this end, our president and I have begun to visit schools such as the John Paul II School in Parla, where Grandparents' Day is celebrated, proposing that Vida Ascendente be associated with this celebration and that meetings between grandchildren and grandparents be encouraged. We also had a meeting with Don Ginés, Bishop of Getafe, to propose the organization of intergenerational meetings at the end of the pandemic. At both meetings, the reception of this proposal was received with enthusiasm and Don Ginés put us in touch with the diocesan delegate for teaching.

What do we expect from these meetings: revitalization and renewal.

Revitalization by creating links between the visions of the future of young people and the visions of the past of older persons. To link the hopes of the former and the lessons learned from the latter, the illusions for the future of the former and the satisfactions of a job well done by the latter.

Renew not by reserving these meetings between generations exclusively for the members of Vida Ascendente, but by opening them to all the elderly who would be interested. This will encourage the participation of the new generation of seniors who, as we have indicated, have a different cultural background and with whom we must connect in order to renew ourselves.

We need ideas so that these meetings are of mutual interest between the two generations. At the Congress of Rome, Maria Voce, President of the Focolari, spoke to us about the dialogue between the generations and highlighted the paths to be followed in the intergenerational dialogue outlined by the Pope at the Synod of Bishops:

• "A first step towards listening is to free our minds and hearts from prejudices and stereotypes."
• "Adults should overcome the temptation to underestimate the ability of young people and judge them negatively"
• Young people, for their part, must "overcome the temptation not to listen to adults and to consider the elderly as 'old, old-fashioned and boring things'".
• Adults should not give an absolute character to their experience by resorting to the motto "it has always been done like this", which in turn encourages young people to do the opposite, because they feel that this immobility does not challenge them.
• Every age of spiritual life has its beauties. The beauties are different.

Given this cooperation between the movements of apostolate and the encounters between the generations, I think of the dogma of the Mystical Body so deeply exposed in the epistles of St. Paul. We are members of the same body, Jesus Christ is the head, the Holy Spirit is His life-giving soul, and each member has his mission.

I would like to end with a beautiful poem by Saint Teresa of Calcutta on the transmission of values between generations, which my daughter gave me on Father's Day:

Jaime Tamarit

Vice President of Vida Ascendente (Spain)