VIDEO MESSAGE FROM THE HOLY FATHER
World Day of Grandparents and Elderly
"I'm with you every day"
Dear grandfathers, Dear grandmothers!
"I am with you every day" (cf. Mt 28,20)! This is the promise the Lord made to His disciples before ascending to heaven, and it is the same promise that He is also repeating to you today, dear grandfather and grandmother. To you. "I am with you every day" are also the words that as Bishop of Rome, and as an elderly person like you, I would like to address you on the occasion of this first World Day of Grandparents and Elderly. The whole Church is close to you – let us say it better, is close to us – it cares about you, it loves you and does not want to leave you alone!
I am well aware that this message is coming to you at a difficult time: the pandemic has been an unexpected and furious storm, a harsh ordeal that has befallen everyone's lives, but which has given special treatment, even harsher treatment to us, the elderly. Many of us have fallen ill; many have lost their lives or seen their spouses or loved ones die; still others were forced to loneliness for a very long time, isolated.
The Lord knows each of our present sufferings. He is at the side of those who have the painful experience of being sidelined; our loneliness – aggravated by the pandemic – is not indifferent to him. One tradition tells that Saint Joachim, Jesus' grandfather, was also excluded from his community because he had no children; his life – like that of his wife Anne – was considered useless. But the Lord sent him an angel to console him. As he stood sad at the gates of the city, an envoy of the Lord appeared to him to say, "Joachim, Joachim! The Lord has answered your insistent prayer." Giotto, in one of his famous frescoes, seems to situate the episode during the night, one of those many sleepless nights, full of memories, worries and desires, to which many of us are accustomed.[1][2]
But also when everything seems obscure, as during these months of pandemic, the Lord continues to send angels to console our loneliness and repeat to us: "I am with you every day". He tells you, he tells me, he tells all of us! This is the meaning of this Day that I wanted us to celebrate for the first time this year, after a long period of isolation and a still slow recovery of social life: that every grandfather, every grandmother, every elderly person – especially the most isolated among us – receives the visit of an angel!
Sometimes they will have the traits of our grandchildren, other times those of our family members, friends of always or whom we have met during these difficult times. During this time, we learned the importance of hugs and visits for all of us, and how saddened I am by the fact that in some places, these gestures are not yet possible!
But the Lord also sends us His messengers through the Word of God, which He never misses in our lives. Let's read a page of the gospel every day, pray to the Psalms, read the Prophets! We will be surprised by the Faithfulness of the Lord. The scriptures will also help us understand what the Lord expects of our lives today. Indeed, he sends the workers to his vineyard at all hours of the day (cf. Mt 20,1-16), at each season of life. I can testify myself that I received the call to become Bishop of Rome by the time I had reached, so to speak, retirement age and I did not think I could do much new. The Lord is always close to us, always, with new invitations, with new words, with His consolation. He is always close to us. You know that the Lord is eternal and never retires, ever.
In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus said to the Apostles, " therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything 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 preserve the roots, to pass on faith to the young and to take care of the little ones. Listen carefully: what is our vocation today, at our age? Preserve the roots, pass on faith to the young and take care of the little ones. Don't forget that.
It doesn't matter how old you are, whether you're still working or not, if you've been alone or still have a family, if you've become a grandmother or grandfather very early or later, if you're still independent, or if you need assistance, because there's no retirement age for the mission to proclaim the gospel , to pass on traditions to grandchildren. You have to get on your way and, above all, get out of yourself to undertake something new.
There is therefore a renewed vocation for you too at a crucial moment in history. You will ask yourself: how is this possible? My energy is gradually running out and I don't think I can do much. How can I start behaving differently when habit has become the rule of my existence? How can I devote myself to those who are poorer when I already have so many worries about my family? How can I broaden my horizons when I can't even leave my home? Isn't my loneliness too heavy a burden? How many of you ask yourself this question: isn't my loneliness too heavy a burden? Nicodemus asked Jesus himself a similar question when he asked him, "How can someone be born when he is old?" (Jn 3:4). This is possible, the Lord replies, opening his heart to the action of the Holy Spirit who blows wherever he wants. The Holy Spirit, by virtue of the freedom he has, goes everywhere and does what he wants.
As I have said many times, we will no longer emerge the same from this crisis that the whole world is going through: we will come out better or worse. And " God willing... If only this may prove not to be just another tragedy of history from which we learned nothing! – we have a hard head! –. God willing... If only we might keep in mind all those elderly persons who died for lack of respirators! [...] God willing... If only this immense sorrow may not prove useless, but enable us to take a
step forward towards a new style of life. If only we might rediscover once for all that we need one another, and that in this way our human family can experience a rebirth" (Enc. Fratelli tutti, n. 35). No one runs away on his own. We are all debtors of each other. All brothers.
In this perspective, I would like to tell you that we need you to build, in fraternity and social friendship, the world of tomorrow: the one in which we will live – we with our children and grandchildren – when the storm has subsided. We must all " take an active part in renewing and supporting our troubled societies"(ibid.,n. 77). Among the different pillars that will have to support this new construction, there are three that you can, better than anyone, 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, through the roads of dream, memory and prayer.
The prophet Joel once made this promise: " your old men will dream dreams; your young men will see visions" (3,1). The future of the world lies in this alliance between young and old. Who better than the young, can take the dreams of the elderly and carry them out? But for that to happen, we must continue to dream: in our dreams of justice, peace and solidarity lies the possibility that our young people will have new visions, and that together we will be able to build the future. It is important that you also testify that it is possible to emerge renewed from an ordeal experience. And I'm sure it's not the only ordeal, because in your life you've had a lot of others and you've managed to get through it. Also learn from this experience to get out of it now.
For this reason, dreams are intimately linked to memory. I am thinking of how precious the painful memory of war is and what new generations can learn about the value of peace. And it is up to you to pass this on, you who have lived through the pain of war. Remembering is a real mission for every elderly person: memory, and transmitting this memory to others. Edith Bruck, who survived the tragedy of the Holocaust, says that "the fact of illuminating even one consciousness is worth the effort and pain of keeping alive the memory of what happened - and it continues. For me, remembering is synonymous with living." I am also thinking of my grandparents and those of you who had to emigrate and know how difficult it is to leave your home, as many people still do so today in search of a future. Some of them, maybe we have them next to us and they take care of us. This memory can help build a more humane and welcoming world. But, without memory, one cannot build; without the foundations, you will never build a house. never! And the foundations of life are memory. [3]
Finally, prayer. As my predecessor, Pope Benedict, the holy old man who continues to pray and work for the Church, once said: "The prayer of the elderly can protect the world, probably helping it even more incisively than the activism of so many." [4]He said that almost at the end of his pontificate in 2012. How beautiful it is! Your prayer is a very precious resource: it is a lung that neither the Church nor the world can deprive itself of (cf. Exhort. ap. Evangelii Gaudium, n. 262). Especially in this difficult time for humanity, when we are crossing, all on the same boat, the stormy sea of the pandemic, your intercession for the world and for the Church is not in vain, but it indicates to all the serene confidence of a safe port.
Dear grandmother, dear grandfather, at the time of concluding my message, I would also like to tell you the example of blessed – and soon saint – Charles de Foucauld. He lived as a hermit in Algeria and in this peripheral context, he testified to " his desire to feel himself a brother to every human being " (Enc. Fratelli tutti, n. 287). His story shows how it is possible, even in the solitude of the desert, to intercede for the poor of the whole world and truly become a universal brother or sister.
I ask the Lord that, following His example, each of us may expand his heart, make it sensitive to the sufferings of the little ones, and be able to intercede for them. Let each of us learn to repeat to all of us, and to the youngest in particular, these words of consolation that have been addressed to us today: "I am with you every day"! Let us move forward and courage! May the Lord bless you.
Rome, St. John of Latran, May 31, 2021, Feast of the Visitation of the Virgin Mary.
[1] The episode is told in the proto gospel of James.
[2] This is the image that was chosen as logo of the World Day of Grandparents and Elderly.
[3] Memory is life, writing is breathing. The Osservatore Romano, 26 January 2021.
[4] Visite to the retirement home "Viva gli anziani", 2 November 2012.