Pope Francis: “the old are not outcasts from whom to distance themselves, make an alliance between young and old” | AgenSIR

“Today in the increasingly rampant worldly mentality, old age not only seems to scare but also continually feeds the logic of waste. In fact, it is said, it is good for elderly people to stay together in structures specially designed for them and able to take care of them. Thus the world is distinguished between those who produce and have great work and service performance for society, and those who by now, no longer active and no longer producing, are destined to live on the margins. In reality, the old are not outcasts from whom to distance themselves, but living signs of the benevolence of God who bestows life in abundance ”. Pope Francis wrote this in the message sent to the participants in the regional meeting of elderly and sick priests with the bishops of Lombardy which is taking place today at the sanctuary of Santa Maria del Fonte in Caravaggio. The initiative, promoted by the regional Bishops’ Conference and by Unitalsi Lombarda, was attended by about 200 people, including 112 priests, elderly or sick deacons from all the Lombard dioceses. The day opened with the welcome of the participants in the Spirituality Center of the Sanctuary and the preparation for the liturgy – and to be punctual for the meeting, there are those who set out on the road at five in the morning, from the more “peripheral territories” ”Like Valtellina. At 11.30 the departure of the procession towards the Sanctuary with the recitation of the Rosary – under the hot sun and the blue sky of a beautiful September morning.
At 11.45 am Mass presided over by Cardinal Oscar Cantoni and concelebrated by the Lombard bishops. “Of course – said the bishop of Cremona, Antonio Napolioni, reading the words of the Message sent to the participants by Pope Francis – old age always seems to take us by surprise: despite the fact that we prepare to face it, when the time comes to deal with age or with failing strength, we always struggle a little ”. “In us – continues Francis – the temptation of resignation can take over and we think we have reached a moment of life in which, after having spent our lives for the Gospel and the Church, we no longer have fruit to bear”. “Instead, this is precisely the moment in which to make a covenant between young and old, between young priests and you elderly priests”, admonishes the Pope who, recalling his words of the homily delivered for the World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly on 25 July 2021, he concludes: “Young people, prophets of the future who do not forget the history from which they come; the elderly, never tired dreamers who transmit experience to young people, without blocking their way. Young and old, the treasure of tradition and the freshness of the Spirit. Young and old together. In society and in the Church: together ”. In his homily, by the archbishop of Milan and Lombard metropolitan Mario Delpini – who in 2014, as vicar general of the archdiocese of Milan, was with the then president of Unitalsi Lombarda Vittore De Carli engaged in the first “gestation” of the Caravaggio meeting – he sang “the praise of those who stand by the cross”: like the Mother of Jesus, Mary of Magdala, “the disciple he loved”. And like “the priests and deacons who are gathered here and all those who were unable to participate in this moving and evocative moment”. Who are there, under the cross, at the foot of the Crucifix, not as “heroes who challenge the world”, or to talk, or cry on each other, or carry out their own projects: but they are there to pray, to listen to Jesus, and to keep fixed their gaze on him, and in this way “they recognize in him how love reaches the end, to completion”. Up to the total gift of self. “Let us praise those who are and let us all too, the people of God, bishops and priests and deacons, consecrated and consecrated, together with Mary, among those who stand by the cross”.
And the gesture made at the end of the celebration was a tribute to Mary: the gift to the Shrine of Caravaggio of three plants of the rose named after Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, hybridized on the tenth anniversary of the death of the biblical Jesuit who was archbishop of Milan from 1979 to 2002 Finally, lunch, also at the Spirituality Center: the last act, in the sign of conviviality, of a day of fraternity which over the years has been able to arouse growing consensus and participation, and which not even the pandemic has been able to stop.

Pope Francis: “the old are not outcasts from whom to distance themselves, make an alliance between young and old” | AgenSIR