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Thursday, August 24, 2000
FAITH IN THE MARKETPLACE
What troubles or delights you
most about the situation of
aged people you know?
“Many of the elderly cannot pay
for food or medicine or even
housing. It delights me to see old
people who can get out and enjoy
life, or, for those who cannot, it’s
nice to see them visited and not
forgotten.” — Deacon Ed Falleur,
Muskogee, Okla.
“Too often their families are
not there for them.” — Sandy
Dominick, Freeport, Ill.
“Their care. What delights me
most is their ability to relive
history for us.” — Pat Fisher,
Lakewood, Colo.
“As a grade-school poet (my
grandnephew, in fact) wrote: ‘Swift
things are beautiful: the cars on
the freeway, the confusion at the
bank on payday! And slow things
are beautiful: a balloon drifting
down, an old lady walking around
town.’” — Mary H. Ryan, Medford,
NJ
An upcoming edition asks: What
results when religions and cultural
groups are neighbors but don’t know
or understand each other? If you
would like to respond for possible
publication, please write: Faith Alive!
3211 Fourth St. N.E.,
Washington, D.C. 20017-1100.
Faith Ali^el
The Southern Cross, Page 9
Important messages
from the elders
By Father J. P. Earls, OSB
Catholic News Service
T
he mature believers in the
church have an important message to
give: God can be trusted to handle our
lives.
You may have noticed last Christ
mas (Dec. 26) that the readings for
Holy Family Sunday emphasized
trust in God’s promises. In the fore
ground, of course, were the faith-filled
Mary and Joseph, bringing their in
fant child to the temple, confident that
he is Israel’s promised deliverer. But
they are not alone in their faith.
Old Simeon and Anna, certain that
they will see the Anointed One in the
temple before death, greet them. And
looming in the background are the
Old Testament figures of Abraham
and Sarah, welcoming in their old age
God’s promise of a child of blessing.
It is remarkable that these elderly
people without families are presented
on Holy Family Sunday. Maybe it also
should be called “Holy Elders Sunday,”
because, if you think of it, we don’t
have any feast dedicated to the elderly
in our midst, no sacrament that recog
nizes and calls attention to lives that
are reaching the full maturity of faith.
Many people from Catholic back
grounds remember the elderly mem
bers of their childhood churches. We
might have found them there at times
no one else was around, a rosary or
prayerbook in their hands, eyes raised
from time to time to the tabernacle, lips
silently moving. We may have won-
hese elderly faithful
silently witness to us that
the ‘real action’ in life is
growing closer to God.”
dered then, in our energetic youthful
ness, what it was that kept them kneel
ing in a darkened church when there
was sunshine to be had outside!
Now, as then, these elderly faithful
silently witness to us that the “real
action” in life is growing closer to God.
Like the holy elders of the Gospel, they
have grown close to God through their
constant petitioning. They have real
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ized that the fullness of God’s blessing
is not any particular gift we may ask
for, but the habit of daily reliance on
God that grows over the years.
Like Anna and Simeon, they un
derstand that a gift arrives according
to God’s schedule, not ours, but arrive
it will. A blessing comes npt just when
we are ready for it, but when it fits
perfectly with the unfolding of God’s
revelation of mercy to the human race
and to all creation.
The holy elders provide an answer
for Christians who ask what they can
do for God and the world if aging lim
its their range of action.
—Dwell on God’s revelation of
mercy in your lives (they say), and
pass it on to the coming generations.
—Pray that those moving into your
ranks may look forward to the revela
tion of God’s mercy in their advanced
years.
—Be signs of confidence in God’s
readiness to handle our lives.
(Benedictine Father Earls teaches
English at St. John’s University,
Collegeville, Minn.)
Guardians of our collective memory
By Patricia Kobielus Thompson
Catholic News Service
-K-
T
m going home. I’m going
home!” The frail, elderly Afri
can-American patient whispered
those words as she repeatedly tried to
get out of her bed in the hospice unit.
It was late. My shift was almost
CNS photo by Bob Taylor
over. Trying to calm her, I took her
words at face value, saying: “Don’t
worry, you’ll be safe here tonight.
Your family will see you in the morn
ing.” I didn’t get it. I realized that the
next day when I learned she had died
five minutes after I left for home.
“Home,” to her, was heaven. She
knew instinctively that was where
she was going.
This memory, firmly etched in
my heart years afterward, echoes
the spiritual journey we all share,
but especially that of the elderly.
The upcoming Jubilee Day for Se
niors, Sept. 24, provides a special
focus. Our thoughts turn to our
hen we hide away the elderly in
convenient homes ... we attempt to
cultivate a plant without roots, missing
life’s beauty because we fear its frailty.”
goals for our own old age.
Those of us who claim
baby-boomer status are
sandwiched between our
children and our parents.
Our children, who feel invin
cible, are not too concerned
about end-of-life consider
ations. Our parents are very
much in the thick of them.
We in the middle, who of
ten grew up feeling we had
the world as our oyster, now
sense the powerlessness in
herent in knowing that our
megatechnology cannot res
cue us from the inevitable
process of aging and death.
How shall we address not
only our own mortality but that of our
parents? In one of Jesuit Father Karl
Rahner’s final essays, the theologian
discussed this.
He noted that in spite of “scientific
gerontology,” which tells all we ever
wanted to know but were afraid to ask
about the physical aging process, we
cannot plumb the spiritual world’s
depths. Technology gives no firm solu
tion to handling the passage from
earthly life to eternal life. We live in
the interstices between our present
life and our life to come, grasping the
familiar past and furtively peeking at
the unknown future.
Pope John Paul II, in a letter to the
elderly, reflect
ed with them on
this phase of
life. In faith, he
says, we believe
that God awaits
us, ready to em
brace our spirits
completely. He
encourages all
to view life as a
series of phases, each with its own
particular character.
He points out the benefits of old
age, stressing the wisdom, the “quiet
ing of the passions” and the mature
counsels with which the young can be
taught.
Society rushes headlong into
“progress,” buffeted by trends, opin
ions and visions of earthly success.
But the pope’s message focuses on the
elderly as “guardians of our collective
memory” who remind us of the past
and are now “the privileged interpret
ers of that body of ideals and common
values which support and guide life in
society.”
A “modernity without memory” is
what results when we hide away the
elderly in convenient homes for the
aged. In doing this we attempt to cul
tivate a plant without roots, missing
life’s beauty because we fear its
frailty.
Life often is cherished more during
the age of wisdom. But even when
nature dims our mental capacity,
life’s preciousness shines forth, with
out words, teaching us to be gentle,
compassionate and patient.
Pope John Paul reminds us that
the indescribable gifts of our wise el
ders’ lives deserve to be treasured in
both good times and bad. They beckon
us to a season of wisdom learned only
at their knees.
(Thompson, a certified hospice
nurse, recently completed a doctorate
in theology with a focus on spiritual
ity and health care.)
Ina Nutshell
The Jubilee Day for Older Persons takes place Sept. 24 in the
United States. A week earlier an international congress is
planned at the Vatican on “The Gift of Long Life.”
The elderly are persons,
memory and wisdom.
They have hopes and dreams,
God can be trusted to handle our lives: That is a message
older people understand and can communicate to others.