SAN DIEGO — The following are excerpts from Pope Leo XIV’s message for the Sixth World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly, observed on July 26, on the theme “I will never forget you.”
Dear brothers and sisters,
Through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord promises that he will never forget any of us. He assures us that he has engraved our faces on the palms of His hands and that his love is greater than a mother’s love for her child (Isaiah 49:15).
The painful feeling of being forgotten is, unfortunately, shared by many people, and among them are quite a few elderly people. God’s love, which forgets no one, offers itself as an act of justice and a response to the anonymity in which human life all too often ends up lost.
The lives of many elderly people seem to be covered by a veil that shrouds them in oblivion. This is what happens in homes where loneliness reigns and also in those care facilities where each person’s uniqueness risks being reduced to a bed number or an illness.
The celebration of the World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly is an opportunity to rediscover that the Church is called to be a mother to all.
May this day, therefore, be an inspiration for everyone, especially the young, to revive the beautiful custom of visiting their grandparents, the elderly members of the family and even those who have no one to visit them.
The Church understands the suffering of her elderly members; she knows that they are all too often considered a burden; she is aware that a profit-driven economy weakens family ties; she knows that many elderly people are left behind by children who are forced to migrate or, in some cases, to fight in wars. For each of these reasons, she joyfully proclaims the Lord’s promise: “But I will never forget you!”
