VATICAN CITY (CNS) — Growing old isn’t something to be feared, but rather something to embrace as a time of grace in one’s life, Pope Francis wrote in a preface for a book that was not released before he died.
“Yes, we must not fear old age. We should not be afraid to embrace growing old, because life is life, and sugarcoating reality means betraying the truth of things,” the pope wrote in the preface for “Waiting for a New Beginning: Reflections on Old Age.”
The book, which was written by Cardinal Angelo Scola, retired archbishop of Milan, was set to be released April 24 by the Vatican publishing house. Pope Francis, who had written the preface in early February, died April 21 at the age of 88.
Cardinal Scola’s reflections on how he was “preparing for his final encounter with Jesus” offered the “consoling certainty” that death was “not the end of everything, but the beginning of something new,” the pope had written.
“It is a new beginning, as the title wisely suggests, because eternal life — which those who love already begin to experience here on earth, in the midst of their daily occupations — is the start of something that will never end. And it is ‘new’ precisely because we will live something we have never experienced fully before: eternity,” he wrote.
Calling Cardinal Scola “a dear brother in the episcopate and a man who has carried out delicate and important responsibilities in the church,” the pope said he was grateful for the Italian cardinal’s reflection which “beautifully weaves together personal experience and cultural sensitivity.”
The late pope noted the 83-year-old cardinal’s “disarming candor” about his own old age and said he found “a sense of kinship with the author.”
“To restore dignity to a word too often seen as negative is something for which we should thank Cardinal Scola,” the pope wrote. “Because to say ‘old’ does not mean ‘worthless,’ as a throwaway culture would sometimes have us believe. Saying ‘old’ instead means saying experience, wisdom, understanding, discernment, prudence, attentiveness, slowness — all values we desperately need!”
Pope Francis said the real issue is not that one grows old but rather “how we grow old” and if it is lived “as a grace, and not with resentment.”
If “we accept this period — which is sometimes long, when our strength wanes, our bodies tire more easily, and our reflexes are not what they once were — with gratitude and appreciation, then even old age becomes a fruitful stage of life, just as Romano Guardini taught us: one that can radiate goodness,” he wrote.
The pope said he also appreciated Cardinal Scola’s reflections on “the human and social value of grandparents,” a subject he spoke about throughout his papacy.
“I have often emphasized how the role of grandparents is crucial to the balanced development of young people and, ultimately, to a more peaceful society,” he wrote. “Amid the frenzy of our societies — so often obsessed with the superficial and the unhealthy pursuit of appearances — the wisdom of grandparents becomes a beacon, shining through uncertainty and offering guidance to grandchildren, who can draw from their elders’ experience a deeper perspective on daily life.”
He also noted the cardinal’s words on the nature of suffering in one’s old age, which he said showed that the book was “born not just of thought but of affection — because it is precisely to this affective dimension that Christian faith points.”
“Christianity is not merely an intellectual exercise or a moral choice, but a loving attachment to a person — Christ, who came to meet us and chose to call us friends.”
Pope Francis concluded the preface saying that he wished “to repeat the gesture I made upon first donning the white robe of the papacy in the Sistine Chapel” and embrace Cardinal Scola “at least in spirit.”
“Now we are both older than we were that day in March 2013, but still united in gratitude to the loving God who offers us life and hope at every age and stage of our journey,” he wrote.
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