Universal Prayer Intention of the Holy Father for February - Elders
That the Church and society may respect the wisdom and experience of older people. Pope
Francis speaks often of the “throwaway culture” of our world. Before becoming pope
he wrote: “In this consumerist, hedonist, and narcissistic society, we are accustomed
to the idea that there are people that are disposable.” The Nazi belief that there
is some life not worthy of life has now infected all of society and affects people
at every stage of life, from the preborn to the elderly.
Pope Francis has said
that he learned many lessons from his grandmother. Thinking about how older family
members are often ignored and rejected when they are in need of care, he said, “it
hurts me; it makes me weep inside.”
Respect for the senior members of society
is not only a matter of human dignity. It concerns the future of the world. It’s natural
to think of the young as the future, but Pope Francis has pointed out that without
the wisdom of older people, there won’t be a future.
In his message to the
47th Social Week of Italian Catholics in September 2013, Pope Francis spoke to the
participants on the theme of the Social Week “The Family, Hope and a Future for Italian
Society”, and expressed his full appreciation of the decision and for choosing to
associate the family with the notion of hope and a future. “It is exactly this!” elaborating
on “Hope and a future presuppose memory. The memory of our elderly people sustains
us as we journey on. The future of society, and precisely of Italian society, is rooted
in the elderly and in the young: the latter, because they have the strength and are
of the age to carry history ahead; the former, because they are a living memory. A
people that does not take care of its elderly, its children and its youth has no future,
because it abuses both memory and promise.” He emphasised.
On the way to World
Youth Day in Brazil, he said: “the elderly, they too are the future of a people. A
people has a future if it goes forward with both elements: with the young, who have
the strength, and things move forward because they do the carrying; and with the elderly
because they are the ones who give life’s wisdom. I have often thought that we do
the elderly an injustice, we set them aside as if they had nothing to offer us; they
have wisdom, life’s wisdom, history’s wisdom, the homeland’s wisdom, the family’s
wisdom. And we need all this!”
May everyone respect this wisdom and experience!
Reflection What
are some of the things that I’ve learned from my elders?
Scripture Job 12:
10-12 With old age is wisdom, and with length of days understanding.