Gulf Pine Catholic

18 Gulf Pine Catholic • December 27, 2019 Pope tells his elderly peers the prayers of the old are powerful BY CINDY WOODEN Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- On the eve of his 83rd birthday, Pope Francis met with a group of his peers -- although many were a few years younger -- and told them that ‟old age is a time of grace.” ‟Grandparents, who have received the blessing of seeing their childrenʼs children, are entrusted with a great task: transmitting the experience of life and the history of the family, the community, the people,” the pope said Dec. 16 during an audience with members of the Italian National Association of Senior Workers. The association represents workers with at least 20 years of seniority in a company, defending the rights of older workers and promoting volunteer service by older people. Pope Francis, who was born Dec. 17, 1936, told association members that oneʼs later years should be a ‟season of dialogue,” because ‟the future of a people naturally presupposes a dialogue and encounter between the old and young to build a society that is more just, more beautiful, has more solidarity and is more Christian.” Pope Francis speaks to members of the Italian National Association of Senior Workers during an audience at the Vatican Dec. 16, the day before his 83rd birthday. The pope told the group “old age is a time of grace” when God “calls us to preserve and hand on the faith; he calls us to pray, especially to intercede; he calls us to be alongside those who are in need.” CNS photo/Vatican Media As one grows older, he said, ‟the Lord renews his call to us. He calls us to preserve and hand on the faith; he calls us to pray, especially to intercede; he calls us to be alongside those who are in need.” ‟The elderly, grandparents, have a unique and spe- cial ability to understand the most problematic situa- tions,” the pope continued. ‟And when they pray for these situations, their prayer is strong, itʼs potent.” By living oneʼs senior years as a gift and a time for dialogue, he said, the elderly show the lie of ‟the tradi- tional stereotype of the elderly: ill, handicapped, dependent, isolated, besieged by fear, left out, having a weak identity after losing their social role.” Active seniors, he said, also fight a system that focuses more on ‟costs and risks” than on ‟resources and potential.” ‟The future -- and this is not an exaggeration -- will be found in dialogue between the young and the old,” he said. ‟We are all called to fight this poisonous throwaway culture. With tenacity we are called to build a different society, one that is more welcoming, more human, more inclusive,” and one where the young arenʼt ignored because they arenʼt working yet and the old arenʼt ignored because people think their finan- cially productive years are over. ‟Remember,” the pope told them, ‟talk to young people, not to clobber them, no. To listen to them, to sow something. This dialogue is the future.” Proclaim the Gospel in every language, in every land, pope tells Filipinos BY CINDY WOODEN Catholic News Service VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- “Continue being ‘smug- glers’ of the faith,” Pope Francis told thousands of Filipino migrants living and working in Italy. Starting the Italian Filipino community’s “Simbang Gabi,” a novena of nighttime or pre-dawn Masses in preparation Christmas, the pope praised the community for not only keeping their faith alive, but for enlivening the faith of the parishes they frequent. According to Italian government statistics, more than 100,000 Filipinos live in Italy as temporary work- ers or permanent residents. The more than 6,000 free tickets for the Dec. 15 Mass with Pope Francis were gone in a matter of hours, said Scalabrinian Father Ricky Gente, the Rome community’s chaplain. A large Filipino choir, with members wearing their national dress, provided the music for the liturgy. The songs and readings were in Filipino, English and Italian. In his homily, Pope Francis said the day’s Gospel reading, Matthew 11:2-11, shows how “in Jesus Christ, the saving love of God is made tangible: ‘The blind regain their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised and the poor have the good news proclaimed to them.’” The signs of God’s kingdom, he said, are not “trum- Pope Francis embraces Scalabrinian Father Ricky Gente, coordinator of the Catholic mission to Filipinos living in Rome, at the end of a Mass Dec. 15, in the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Basilica. The Mass was the first of the “Simbang Gabi,” a novena of nighttime or pre-dawn Masses in preparation for Christmas. (CNS photo/Vatican Media). pet blares” and military marches, “not judgments and condemnations of sinners, but liberation from evil and the proclamation of mercy and peace.” “And because there are still many inhabitants of the existential peripheries” -- the poor, the fragile and those thirsting for justice -- “we must ask the Lord to renew the miracle of Christmas each year, offering ourselves as instruments of his loving mercy toward the least ones,” the pope said. Pope Francis praised the Filipino community for bringing with them to Rome the tradition of the Simbang Gabi. “Through this celebration,” he said, “we want to prepare for Christmas in accordance with the spirit of the Word of God we have heard, remaining constant until the definitive coming of the Lord.” “We want to commit ourselves to manifesting the love and tenderness of God,” he said. “We are called to be leaven in a society that often is not able to savor the beauty of God and experience the grace of his pres- ence.” “Brothers and sisters, you who have left your home- land in the search for a better future have a special mis- sion,” the pope told them. “May your faith be ‘yeast’ in the parish communities you belong to today. I encour- age you to multiply the opportunities of encounter to share your cultural and spiritual richness, allowing yourselves at the same time to be enriched by the expe- riences of others.” All Catholics, everywhere in the world, he said, are called “to build together that communion in diversity that is a distinctive feature of the kingdom of God.” “We are all called to proclaim together the Gospel, the good news of salvation, in every language in order to reach as many people as possible,” he said.