Leo XIV: old age is and challenge to those who respond with a missionary pastoral

Pope Leo XIV defended that old age is a gift and a challenge to which the Catholic Church is called to develop a missionary pastoral that involves the elderly as witnesses of hope.

On the morning of this Friday in Rome, the Pontiff received in the Vatican Apostolic Palace the participants in the II International Congress of Pastoral of the Third Age organized by the Dicasterio for the laity, the family and the life.

In his speech, Leo XIV valued that the theme of this meeting, “your elders will have dreams”, extracted from the book of the prophet Joel, contains words very dear to Pope Francis, his predecessor, who often spoke “of the need for an alliance between young people and the elderly.”

The Pontiff explained about this biblical event, that the prophet “announces the universal effusion of the Holy Spirit, which creates unity between generations and distributes different gifts to each one.” He also regrets that currently “the relationships between generations are usually marked by fractures and counterpositions that face them.”

Specifically, he referred to two reproaches: that the oldest “do not leave space to young people in the world of work” or “absorb too many economic and social resources to the detriment of other generations, as if longevity were a crime.”

In this regard, Leo XIV expressed his conviction that “the elderly are a gift, a blessing that must be welcomed”, that longevity “is one of the signs of hope of our time, everywhere in the world.”

At the same time, the pontiff pondered “it is a challenge, because the growing number of older people is an unprecedented historical phenomenon, which calls us to a new exercise of discernment and understanding.”

In this sense, in the face of the current mentality that “tends to give value to existence if it produces wealth or success, if it exercises power or authority, forgetting that the human being is a creature always limited and needy”, Pope Leo XIV stressed that the fragility that is manifested in the elderly “is hidden or away by those who cultivate worldly illusions, not to have before their eyes the image of what we will inevitably be.

However, he added, it is “healthy to understand that aging is part of the wonder we are,” as he said during the jubilee of young people last August.

The Pope invited us to stop being shame of human weakness to “feel driven to ask our brothers and God, who watches as a father about all his creatures.”

“The Church is called to offer times and instruments to decipher it, in order to live it Christianly, without pretending to remain eternally young and free of despair,” continued the Pontiff, who recommended as “very valuable” the catechesis that Pope Francis dedicated to this issue.

Active subjects of evangelization

Pope Leo XIV valued the presence of older people who, once finished their work stage “have the opportunity to enjoy an increasingly prolonged period of good health, economic well -being and more free time”, and who are often “those who testify to regular assistance to the liturgy and direct parish activities, such as catechism and various forms of pastoral service.”

“It is important to find an adequate language and proposals for them, involving them not as passive recipients of evangelization, but as active subjects, and respond together with them, and not in their place, to the questions that life and the gospel raise us,” he added.

Coming from different vital experiences and relationship with faith, the Pontiff indicated that “for all, the pastoral of the elderly must be evangelizing and missionary, because the Church is always called to announce Jesus, the Christ Savior, every man and woman, in each age and stage of life.”

That first implies carrying “the cheerful announcement of the tenderness of the Lord, to overcome, along with them, the darkness of loneliness, a great enemy of the life of the elderly” in a missionary task that “challenges us all, our parishes and, in particular, the young people, who can become witnesses of closeness and listening to those who are more advanced than they are more advanced.”

“In other cases, missionary evangelization will help old people to find the Lord and his Word. Over the years, in fact, in many resurfaces the question about the meaning of existence, creating the opportunity to seek an authentic relationship with God and to deepen the vocation to holiness itself,” the pontiff continued.

Finally, Leo XIV recalled that “announcing the Gospel is the main commitment of our pastoral: by involving older people in this missionary dynamic, they will also witness hope, especially with their wisdom, devotion and experience.”