The beauty of life can be enjoyed fully only when there is an intergenerational exchange, meaning Grandparents and young ‘grow together’ in fruitful exchange.
Pope Francis on Sunday presided over Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica for around 8,000 elderly people from across Italy. The day is being celebrated under the theme; “His mercy is from age to age.”
Jesus’ first parable in the Gospel passage, said the Pope, notes that wheat and weeds grow next to one another in the same field, which therefore reminds Christians to be realistic in our outlook on life.
“In human history, as in each of our lives, there is a mixture of light and shadows, love and selfishness,” he said. “Good and evil are even intertwined to the point of seeming inseparable.”
He said that such a realistic attitude pushes aside ideologies and helps us realize that evil dwells not only “outside” of ourselves, but must also be confronted within ourselves.
The pontiff noted, Christians should not seek to uproot the weeds of evil and thereby pull up the good wheat through an “impulsive and aggressive” attitude.
“We frequently see the temptation of seeking to bring about a ‘pure society’, a ‘pure Church’,” he said, “whereas in working to reach this purity, we risk being impatient, intransigent, even violent toward those who have fallen into error.”
The correct attitude in the face of evil, said the Pope, is patience, which leads us to treat others with respect, and the awareness that “the definitive victory over evil is essentially God’s work.”
He then recalled that the elderly often look back on their lives with nostalgia and the desire to undo past mistakes.
Yet, he said, Jesus invites grandparents and the elderly to “accept the mystery of life with serenity and patience, to leave judgement to Him, and not to live regretful and remorseful lives.”
“Old age is indeed a blessed time,” he said, “for it is the season to be reconciled, a time for looking tenderly at the light that has shone despite the shadows, confident in the hope that the good wheat sown by God will prevail over the weeds with which the devil has wanted to plague our hearts.”
