Silver Threads Among the Gold: 4th World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly

 

Pope Francis designated the Fourth Sunday of July, as the First World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly on January 31, 2021. This particular Sunday was selected because of its proximity to the Memorial of Saints Joachim and Ann, the parents of Mary, that we celebrated on Friday.  Today is the fourth annual observance on which we are encouraged to pray for and with those who are old. Today is also an opportunity to pray for the gift of wisdom, a gift that begins to accrue with old age. And tragically, it is a day to pray for an end to legislation that permits and encourages the intentional killing of the sick and elderly.

 

Being old in the age denying U.S. is not easy. We live in a country in which youth, productivity, and vigor are celebrated while the elderly are increasingly marginalized.  Australian Trappist Michael Casey writes: "Some societies reverence the old, seeing in them the embodiments of ancient wisdom and experience.  We, on the contrary, seem to hanker after illusory youthfulness,

(an illusion that is) quickly and irretrievably left behind."  There are no valid arguments to counter Casey’s assessment.

 

Among the most insulting of comments directed at an old person is the ever popular and terribly unoriginal, "You're not 83 years old,  You're 83 years YOUNG."  (Throw in a few high-decibel whoo whoo whoos and arm pumps

if your are so inclined.)

 

Nothing horrifies Americans as much as the thought of aging. Few things cause as much anxiety as the idea of having to live within the physical, cognitive, and functional limits imposed as we become old. Insisting that an octogenarian is young efficiently accomplishes two things.  It strips the individual of his or her dignity and reveals the speaker's terror of aging, fear of death, lack of compassion, and general unkindness.  Some do have an easier time with aging than others.  But, no matter what, we cannot afford to deny the reality of the old by insisting they are really young despite all evidence to the contrary. If we are truly to honor and respect the elderly we must accept each individual for who, what, and how he or she really is rather than demanding they be who, what, and how we want them to be, which is young, independent, and ideally, not a bother.

 

Growing Old in Christ is a 20-some year-old book that consists of nineteen essays on ‘the Christian practice of growing old.’  In one of the essays Stanley Hauerwaus writes,  ". . . one of the problems of our time is the assumption that we can and should live as if we will never grow old." The reality is that the only way to avoid growing old is to die young.

 

In chapter twelve of The Book of Job, we are asked: “Is not wisdom found among the aged?  Does not long life bring understanding?”  Denying the reality of aging is a refusal to acknowledge and respect the wisdom of those who are old.

 

Wisdom is a gift meant to be shared with the young, even those who are unwilling to accept it.  And sometimes bits of it stick even to those who would reject it.  Wisdom is not innate.  It is not genetic. Wisdom is acquired.  It is acquired through long experience of success and failure, through ecstatic victory and bitter defeat.  It is acquired most easily by those with a listening heart and the courage to enter into silence and prayer so as to reflect on their lives with awareness that those lives are nearing an end.

 

Wisdom is a force in the world that is critical to civilization and fundamental to being human. Wisdom is the most significant factor that separates us from all lower animals without exception.  Wisdom also separates us from “artificial intelligence” a title that only gets it half-right: it is artificial.   

 

When others insist that an old man or an old woman is YOUUUUUUUUNG they are denying his or her existence, disparaging the challenges he or she has faced, and throwing in a complimentary dollop of hostility,  in part because the old mirror what the speaker will become if said speaker lives long enough.

 

For many years the Journal of the American Medical Association, more commonly known as JAMA featured cover art with commentary by M. Therese Southgate, a physician who was a self-taught art historian. Some weeks her essay on the cover art was the best thing in it.  It was always the first thing I read.

 

The cover on May 3,1995 issue featured a painting by Georges de la Tour titled “Old Man.”  Southgate closed her essay with a quote from Swiss moral philosopher  Henri Amiel who wrote. "To know how to grow old is the masterwork of wisdom and one of the most difficult chapters in the great art of living."

 

In light of today’s commemoration of grandparents and the elderly, the celebration of aging and wisdom, the final verses of the Book of Habakkuk are particularly relevant.  They describe the situation of many of us who are old and facing diminished strength and loss of resources while simultaneously giving us hope.

 

"For though the fig tree blossom not

nor fruit be on the vines,

though the yield of the olive fail

and the terraces produce no nourishment,

though the flocks disappear from the fold

and there be no herd in the stalls,

Yet will I rejoice in the Lord

and exult in my saving God.

God, my Lord, is my strength;

he makes my feet swift as those of hinds

and enables me to go upon the heights”

__________________________________________________________

All of the photos are of the elderly who accepted the fact that they were old.

Father Rabago, SJ in Taiwan.  Rabago was a Spanish physician and Jesuit priest who spent his life in Taiwan.  He was 104 at the time of the photo.  Seen at Tien Center in central Taipei.

An elderly Australian Jesuit at prayer.  He was blind and living in the infirmary.

I don't know if this woman was elderly or younger but weathered.  This was her second day sitting in the courtyard of Good Samaritan Hospital in N'Djamena, Chad.  The sun was searing.  No idea what she was waiting for but I suspect it was the time to go in to visit or feed a relative.

Elderly Sisters of St. Paul of Chartres in My Tho, Vietnam.  I was attending a celebration for the Mother General on her feast.  I could not take my eyes off of them, wondering what they experienced and saw during the war.  In the last row behind them are young women who are candidates and postulants.

My mom presenting the gifts to Cardinal O'Malley at our ordination.  This was in 2007.  Mom was approaching 91 at the time and would go on to live almost two more years.

A three-generation family waiting to cross the street on Roosevelt Road in Taipei, Taiwan. 

Father James (call me Jimmy) A. Martin, SJ, a native of Plymouth, PA (my hometown) and the only other man I know from there who became a Jesuit.  In this photo Jimmy was 103.  He died at the age of 105 one month and one day on 1 October 2007.  One day I joined Jimmy at table at Georgetown.  He was with two Jesuits from West Africa who had very soft voices and very thick French accents.  They were trying to tell him that had never met anyone as old (he was 104 when this happened).  Because he couldn't hear or understand them I joined the talk and said, "Jimmy, these men are amazed you lived as long as you have."  He grinned, stroked his chin and replied, "So am I, so am I." 

Fr. Jack, SJ, MD