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.