02/06/00

The Passing of Time

The millennium celebrations so much in the news at the New Year marked a moment in human history, but birthday celebrations mark moments in personal time. A couple of weeks ago, as I celebrated my birthday with some of my family, I read Pope John Paul’s recent letter to the elderly.

I’m not sure exactly when one becomes elderly; but anyone over sixty, as I am, is no longer young nor even close to young. The Pope’s letter to the elderly is a personal reflection on his growing old in the light of his faith in Christ. It speaks directly to older persons but has something to say to anyone who is aware of the passing of personal time.

Speaking as an “older person” to other older persons, the Holy Father recalls the stages of his life, which has been “bound up with the history of much of this century.” When he thinks of the stages of his life, he sees the faces of those who accompanied him through the events that shaped the years. Most of all, however, he sees “outstretched the provident and merciful hand of God the Father”, whose love has sustained the Pope’s life and set him free. “You have taught me, O God, from my youth, and till the present I proclaim your wondrous deeds. And now that I am old and gray, O God, forsake me not, till I proclaim your strength to every generation that is to come” (Psalm 71:17-18).

The Pope writes that it is natural for the elderly to revisit the past in order to make a kind of assessment of the years and of one’s life. Looking again at the lights and the shadows, in both one’s own life and in the history of the past century, gives a person perspective to face the end of life on earth in the light of eternity. “There is an urgent need to recover a correct perspective on life as a whole,” the Pope writes. “The correct perspective is that of eternity, for which life at every phase is a meaningful preparation.” This perspective can be called wisdom.

The pages of Holy Scripture, which declare that old age is a blessing from God, abound with elderly people who are wise: Abraham and Sarah, who were given a son when quite old, and Moses, who was an old man when God entrusted him with the mission of leading the chosen people out of Egypt. Elizabeth and Zechariah became the parents of John the Baptist in their old age. When Jesus’ mother, the Virgin Mary, and her husband Joseph brought Jesus to the temple as an infant, they were greeted by two elderly people, Simeon and Anna. The elderly Nicodemus heard Jesus tell him that he had to be born again (John 3: 1-21). In his old age, St. Peter accepted martyrdom for the sake of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Faith gave these men and women a youthful vigor of spirit as they matured and grew old.

The Holy Father pleads that society respect the elderly and honor their wisdom. They, in turn, are to pass on the faith that has made them wise and that gives them security even as their own strength fails. As strength fails, older people look toward death, despite a natural reluctance to do so. “However rationally comprehensible death may be from a biological standpoint,” the Pope writes, “it is not possible to experience it as something ‘natural’. This would contradict man’s deepest instincts.” Supernatural faith in God then steps in to give hope, for “God is not God of the dead, but of the living” (Luke 20:38).

I encountered such faith last week when I visited Brother Gary Burr, S.V.D., at the Divine Word Missionaries’ infirmary in Techny. Brother Gary is not very elderly, but he has a wisdom born from the years of his life given to God as a missionary brother. These last years, before he was diagnosed with cancer, were given to God’s people at St. Elizabeth Parish on South Wabash Avenue at 41st Street. His room in the infirmary at Techny is filled with cards and promises of prayers from the people he served and who have come to love him. He wrote to his family and friends a month ago that he never thought he would be in the S.V.D. infirmary until he “turned eighty or so” but that the infirmary is now his home until death. Brother Gary is clear headed because he is clear souled. “How do you pray?” I asked him. “I pray frequently because I can’t pray for long,” he answered. He waits for death now, he says, when medicine can do no more, with “peace and gratitude.”

Gratitude for life and peace in the face of death marked Cardinal Bernardin’s last months, and the Pope writes of that same experience: “I feel a spontaneous desire to share fully with you my own feelings at this point of my life after more than 20 years of ministry on the throne of Peter. Despite the limitations brought on by age, I continue to enjoy life. For this I thank the Lord. It is wonderful to be able to give oneself to the very end for the sake of the kingdom of God! At the same time, I find a great peace in thinking of the time when the Lord will call me—from life to life!”

In the Nicene Creed, which comes to us from the first Ecumenical Council called after the end of the persecution of the Church by the Roman empire, Jesus is described as “God from God, light from light.” The creed is saying that Jesus, risen from the dead, is of the same nature as the Father and the Holy Spirit. He is also life from life and, because of faith in Him, each of us is called, as the Holy Father writes, “from life to life.” This faith calls us to treasure life and foster it, at each of its stages, from conception to natural death. It calls us to protect life appropriately, our own and that of all our brothers and sisters. God bless you.

Sincerely yours in Christ,

Francis Cardinal George, OMI
Archbishop of Chicago

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