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Image of Elderly Man: Self-photographed by Ahmet Demirel
POPE FRANCIS GENERAL AUDIENCE
Paul VI Audience Hall – Wednesday, 10 August 2022
Catechesis on Old Age:16. “I go to prepare a place for you”.
Old age, a time projected towards fulfilment
(John 14:1-3)
1 Let not your hearts be troubled; believe in God, believe also in me. 2 In my Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 3 And when I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also.
Dear brothers and sisters,
We are now at the last catechesis devoted to old age. Today we enter into the moving intimacy of Jesus’ farewell to his followers, extensively reported in John’s Gospel. The farewell discourse begins with words of consolation and promise: “Let not your hearts be troubled” (Jn 14:1). “When I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also” (14:3). They are beautiful words of the Lord.
Shortly beforehand, Jesus had said to Peter, “”You will follow me later” (John 13:36), reminding him of the passage through the fragility of his faith. The time of life that remains to the disciples will be, inevitably, a passage through the fragility of witness and through the challenges of brotherhood. But it will also be a passage through the exciting blessings of faith: “He who believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these he will do” (John 14:12). Think what a promise this is! I do not know if we think of it fully, if we believe in it fully! I don’t know, at times I think not.
Old age is the fitting time for the moving and joyful witness of expectation. The elderly man and woman are waiting, waiting for an encounter. In old age the works of faith, which bring us and others closer to the Kingdom of God, are by now beyond the power of the energy, words, and impulses of youth and maturity. But precisely in this way they make the promise of the true destination of life even more transparent. And what is the true destination of life? A place at the table with God, in the world of God. It would be interesting to see whether in the local Churches there is any specific reference intended to revitalize this special ministry of awaiting the Lord – it is a ministry, the ministry of waiting on the Lord – by encouraging the individual charisms and community qualities of the elderly person.
An old age that is consumed in the dejection of missed opportunities brings despondency to oneself and to others. Instead, old age lived with gentleness, lived with respect for real life definitely dissolves the misunderstanding of a power that must be sufficient for itself and its own success. It even dissolves the misunderstanding of a Church that adapts itself to the worldly condition, thinking in this way to definitively govern its perfection and fulfillment.
When we free ourselves from this presumption, the time of aging that God grants us is already in itself one of those “greater” works Jesus speaks of. In effect, it is a task that Jesus was not given to fulfil: his death, his resurrection and his ascent to heaven made it possible for us!
Let us remember that “time is superior to space”. This is the law of initiation. Our life is not made to be wrapped up in itself, in an imaginary earthly perfection: it is destined to go beyond, through the passage of death – because death is a passage. Indeed, our stable place, our our point of arrival is not here, it is beside the Lord, where he dwells forever.
Here, on earth, the process of our “novitiate” begins: we are apprentices of life, who – amid a thousand difficulties – learn to appreciate God’s gift, honouring the responsibility of sharing it and making it bear fruit for everyone. The time of life on earth is the grace of this passage. The conceit of stopping time – of wanting eternal youth, unlimited wellbeing, absolute power – is not only impossible, it is delusional.
Our existence on earth is the time of the initiation into life: it is life, but one that leads you on to a fuller life, the initiation of the fuller one; a life which finds fulfilment only in God. We are imperfect from the very beginning, and we remain imperfect up to the end. In the fulfilment of God’s promise, the relationship is inverted: God’s space, which Jesus prepares for us with every care, is superior to the time of our mortal life. Hence: old age brings closer the hope of this fulfilment. Old age knows definitively, by now, the meaning of time and the limitations of the place in which we live our initiation. This is why old age is wise: the elderly are wise for this reason. This is why it is credible when it invites rejoicing in the passage of time: it is not a threat, it is a promise. Old age is noble, it does not need makeup to show its nobility. Perhaps the makeup comes when nobility is lacking. Old age is credible when it invites rejoicing in the passage of time: but time passes and this is not a threat, it is a promise. Old age that rediscovers the depth of the gaze of faith is not conservative by nature, as they say! God’s world is an infinite space on which the passage of time no longer has any weight. And at the very Last Supper, Jesus projected himself toward this goal when he told the disciples: “I tell you I shall not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new with you in my Father’s kingdom” (Mt 26:29). He went further. In our preaching, Paradise is often rightly filled with bliss, of light, of love. Perhaps it lacks a bit of life. Jesus, in the parables, spoke of the kingdom of God by putting more life into it. Aren’t we more capable of that, in talking about the life that goes on?
Dear brothers and sisters, old age, lived in the expectation of the Lord, can become the fulfilled “apologia” of faith, which gives grounds, for everyone, for our hope for all (cf. 1 Pt 3:15). Because old age renders Jesus’ promise transparent, projecting towards the Holy City of which the Book of Revelation speaks (chapters 21-22). Old age is the stage of life best suited to spreading the joyful news that life is initiation for ultimate fulfillment. he old are a promise, a testimony of promise. And the best is yet to come. The best is yet to come: it is like the message of the old man and the old believer, the best is yet to come. God grant us all an old age capable of this! Thank you.
