The title of the triduum was: Aging and Advent: The Confluence of Hope, Despair and Generous Gratitude. The talks are a bit longer than an average homily. In addition I will include the prayers to which I refer with the exception of the Biblical references that will have verse number included. And of course a few photos. Note, for today's references see Luke chapters 2 and 3. I gave out a copy of the "O" Antiphons that will begin on 17 December. They are very easy to find on the internet.
Aging is Grace
“All our days pass away in your anger,
Our life is over like a sigh.
Our span is seventy years
or eighty for those who are strong.”
Psalm 90 is the most epidemiologically correct psalm in the
entire psalter. It is astonishing how it reflects the reality of life in the
United States in the early 21st century. Yes, people did live to what we consider old
age in the Ancient Near East (I am ignoring Methusala and his ultra-long lived
buddies). There have always been those
who lived to grand old age. But
expecting to live to old age, assuming eighty years as one’s birthright, is a
distinctly modern concept.
At the beginning of the twentieth century, life expectancy
in the U.S. was forty-eight years of age.
By 1960 it had increased to sixty-nine.
Average life expectancy is now hovering around seventy-nine. The cohort over eighty is the fastest growing
age cohort throughout the world, developed and undeveloped. Sociologists more or less arbitrarily defined
sixty-five as the beginning of being elderly during the 1900’s, using it as a benchmark
to begin Social Security and retirement.
Retirement is a twentieth century concept. However, given the increasing life expectancy
in the U.S. it is entirely possible for an individual to spend one-third of his
or her total life retired.
I recently came across a startling comment in the geriatrics
section of Harrison’s Textbook of
Internal Medicine that puts the novelty of our situation into context. “Of all the people who have ever lived to age
sixty-five, in the history of mankind, most of them are alive today.”
We begin to age at the moment of birth. The changes that occur in our bodies during
the first few minutes and hours of life are mind-boggling. The changes that
occur in our bodies, brains, minds, psyches, and spirits in the following years
are even more mind-boggling. All of
these changes, all of this growth, come under the rubric of aging though we
seem to reserve the use of the word aging for a period beyond forty. We age in multiple ways. Three important
modes of aging are: biological, sociological and existential.
Biological aging is easy enough to understand. We are all
experiencing it. We look into the mirror
and we see it. Leon Kass, an MD, PhD
philosopher at the University of Chicago defined biological aging as: “Processes, distinct from disease, that make
the body progressively less able to maintain itself and perform its various
functions. There is a gradual decline in
vigor, degeneration of bodily parts and functions, increasing susceptibility to
disease, (and) an increasing likelihood of death. . . .” Little has to be added
to this definition. Aging, despite the
way it is perceived by the Botox crowd and Hollywood gliterrati, is not a
disease.
Sociological aging, defined by Michel Philbert, is a bit more of challenge to appreciate
intuitively. But, we cannot separate our aging from the social and cultural
contexts in which we age. One cannot
understand aging if it is divorced from the images, naïve or sophisticated, in
which it is expressed. The images of
aging common in the U.S. are very different from those in Taiwan or Viet
Nam.
Existential aging was defined best by the ethicist Daniel
Callahan: “We start growing old in other people’s eyes. Then slowly we come to share their judgment .
. . . Age encompasses a relationship to time . . a relationship to self-consciousness . . .
and to the passing of the generation. Age is not an incidental trait of a person.”
Early in life aging is not considered a bad thing. Aging or maturing represents increase, accretion, gain, and
accumulation. All sorts of skills are
pegged to our age. We know at what age a
child should begin to walk, to speak in complete sentences, to reach puberty,
and so on. Certain benefits and
privileges are part of aging: a driver’s license, the right to vote, the
ability to make financial decisions or sign a contract, the dreaded elder
discount, and so on.
We pay particular attention to certain birthdays: Sixteen, twenty-one, thirty, forty and
sixty-five to name a few. In the Society
of Jesus living to one-hundred means that you get your own birthday party
instead of being lumped in with the rest of the guys in the house at the
monthly "birthday celebration." Jimmy Martin got five individual birthday
parties in the Georgetown Jesuit Community before he died at age one hundred
five years, one month and one day. I
will come back to Jimmy tomorrow.
There is very little about aging in the New Testament. But, the aged do receive some notice during
the Christmas season. Elizabeth and
Zechariah were both elderly when John was conceived. At the point of giving up hope, a son was
conceived. Simeon was old and nearing
death when he recognized the infant Jesus in the Temple. We commemorate that
moment nightly when we pray, “Lord, now you let your servant go in peace Your
word has been fulfilled . . ." Anna,
who proclaimed the birth of Jesus to one and all, was eighty-four years old
when she too recognized Him in the Temple.
These elders were able to recognize Jesus’ coming into the
world, they were able to appreciate this presence, they were able to know who
this child was because of the grace of age and the wisdom that accompanies it, rather
than despite their age. They had waited in hope for many years. Those hopes were now fulfilled. Aging brings unique graces into our lives. Despite the limitations, the aches and pains,
the illnesses and the approach of death, aging is a great grace, a grace that
only humans can experience and appreciate in its fullness.
Aging is an advent for all of us, a time of Christ coming to
us and coming into our lives in a unique way, if we let Him. Old age is a time of mature hope. Old age is a time during which we may
struggle with despair. Old age is a time
in which we can choose to be grateful and generous.
In a little less
than two weeks we will begin the O Antiphons at evening prayer. The first one is: “O Wisdom, O holy Word of
God, you govern all creation with your strong yet tender care. Come and show your people the way to
salvation.”
These are antiphons
with which to explore age.
The Christmas tree in the rotunda taken from in front of the altar was impressive. This was a 15 second exposure at f22. Love that tripod and cable release.
Finally, the tree through the closed doors at the back of the chapel. The glass in the doors must be original as it is quite irregular and wavy, giving an interesting distortion.
There will be more photos of Campion in the coming days. The director of the retreat house asked me to take a lot of them for the soon-to-be-revised web site for Campion Renewal Center. Accepting was a no-brainer
+Fr. Jack, SJ, MD
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