In a preface to a book by Cardinal Angelo Scola, Pope Francis writes: ‘we should never fear old age. We should not worry because life is what it is – and when we try to cover reality with sweetness, we would be betraying the truth of many things in our life.’ The Pope says that the problem is not the fact that people get older, but how they age. Old age should be a time when we reap the fruits and gifts that goodness radiates all around us. We should live old age with grace not resentment. We should accept it with a dose of gratitude, in spite of any suffering endured in the process. When you call a person ‘old’, you should not discard him, as if his time limit on earth has expired. Old age means experience, knowledge and wisdom. Death is not the end of everything, but the beginning of many new things. It is in a way, a new beginning, because those whom we love, thanks to their gifts and talents, they are already experiencing eternal life. It is a new beginning because we are actually living through something we never experienced before – eternal life.
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