Circular: 14/2024 July 01, 2024
My dear Collaborators,
Greetings to each of you in this month of July!
We have just completed one month of the new pastoral year and having reflected on the month gone by, I can say with certainty that we have done our best to be at the service of the people entrusted to our care, and for this, I wish to express my sincere gratitude to each of you.
The month gone by has seen many a new face in our Presbyteries and in our Institutions. I am sure that the new priests, religious men and women have got used to their new appointments and responsibilities and are moving ahead with courage and determination to be Christ-like who came “not to be served, but to serve”.
What was also characteristic of the last month was the meeting of the Diocesan and Religious priests involved in parishes and pastoral activities. I am grateful to Fr Avin Franklin, Financial Administrator, Archdiocese of Bombay, for having helped us to understand the financial procedures and all that is expected of us as far as Government rules and regulations are concerned. May I earnestly request you to put into practice all that Fr Avin has informed us about. Please note that defaulters in this area will be responsible and answerable before the court of law. We also had our first Priests’ Council meeting where we discussed the Synodal process and a few concerns of the Diocese. Thank you for all that you are doing to make our Diocese vibrant and flourishing.
May I bring to your kind attention the celebration of the 4th World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly to be celebrated on Sunday, July 28. Pope Francis has already released the theme of his message for this Day: “Do not cast me off in my old age” (Psalm 71: 9). According to the Holy Father, Loneliness is a common experience, “a bitter lot” in the life of many elderly persons, so often the victims of the throw-away culture. We need to respect our senior citizens, make them feel comfortable, spend time with them and listen to what they have to tell us. As Catholics, I believe that we need to express our affectionate attention to the most fragile members in our parishes and in our Institutions. I am confident you will make your parishioners aware of this call to be at the service of the grandparents and the elderly during your Mass on Sunday, July 28. Please find enclosed the Pope’s Message on the occasion of the 4th World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly.
We are all moving ahead to the celebration of the Ordinary Jubilee 2025, with the theme, Pilgrims of Hope. This year is dedicated to focus our attention on prayer. Could we explore ways to ensure that our parishioners spend time in prayer before the Eucharistic Lord before or after Mass, pray the Rosary at home, recite the Novena Prayers, etc. always keeping the intention of the Ordinary Jubilee 2025 in mind. I am confident of your wholehearted support and collaboration in this regard.
May I request you to see how best you can get our children to attend Sunday School classes and the youth to attend youth meetings. Formation of these groups in the initial years is crucial and most important as these children and youth when they grow up will surely become potential leaders in the Church and in our society. May I request you to discuss this point in your Parish Pastoral Council meetings and bring about a revival in the Sunday School catechesis and youth ministry. I count on your support and collaboration.
The month of July brings with it a number of Liturgical celebrations: The Solemnity of St Thomas, Apostle of India (July 03), Memorial of St Benedict (July 11), Memorial of St Bonaventure (July 15), Memorial of Our Lady of Mount Carmel (July 16), Feast of St Mary Magdalene (July 22), Feast of St James (July 25), Memorial of Sts Joachim and Anne (parents of the Blessed Virgin Mary), Memorial of Sts Martha, Mary and Lazarus (July 29) and Memorial of St Ignatius of Loyola (July 31).
Thank you for your selfless services and your enthusiastic response to my requests. Together, we strive to make our Diocese a reflection of God’s kingdom on earth. You are the extension of my hands and feet and together, we will certainly bring about a renewal and transformation in those areas of pastoral ministry that need change and growth.
God bless you and with every good wish,
Yours in Christ,
+Barthol Barretto Bishop, Diocese of Nashik
Encl.: a.a.
MESSAGE OF POPE FRANCIS FOR THE IV WORLD DAY FOR GRANDPARENTS AND THE ELDERLY – July 28, 2024
“Do not cast me off in my old age” (cf. Ps 71:9)
Dear brothers and sisters,
God never abandons his children, never. Even when our age advances and our powers decline, when our hair grows white and our role in society lessens, when our lives become less productive and can risk appearing useless. God does not regard appearances (cf. 1 Sam 16:7); he does not disdain to choose those who, to many people, may seem irrelevant. God discards no stone; indeed, the “oldest” are the firm foundation on which “new” stones can rest, in order to join in erecting a spiritual edifice (cf. 1 Peter 2:5).
Sacred Scripture as a whole is a story of the Lord’s faithful love. It offers us the comforting certainty that God constantly shows us his mercy, always, at every stage of life, in whatever situation we find ourselves, even in our betrayals. The Psalms are filled with the wonder of the human heart before God who cares for us despite our insignificance (cf. Ps 144:3-4); they assure us that God has fashioned each one of us from our mother’s womb (cf. Ps 139:13) and that even in hell he will not abandon our life (cf. Ps 16:10). We can be certain, then, that he will be close to us also in old age, all the more because, in the Bible, growing old is a sign of blessing.
At the same time, in the Psalms we also find this heartfelt plea to the Lord: “In my old age do not abandon me” (cf. Ps 71:9). Words that are strong, even crude. They make us think of the extreme suffering of Jesus, who cried out on the cross: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mt 27:46).
In the Bible, then, we find both the certainty of God’s closeness at every stage of life and the fear of abandonment, particularly in old age and in times of pain. There is no contradiction here. If we look around, we have no difficulty seeing that its words reflect an utterly evident reality. All too often, loneliness is the bleak companion of our lives as elderly persons and grandparents. Often, when I was Bishop of Buenos Aires, I would visit rest homes and realize how rarely those people received visits. Some had not seen their family members for many months.
There are many reasons for this loneliness: in many places, above all in the poorer countries, the elderly find themselves alone because their children are forced to emigrate. I think too of the many situations of conflict. How many of the elderly are left alone because men – youths and adults – have been called to battle, and women, above all women with small children, have left the country in order to ensure safety for their children. In cities and villages devastated by war, many elderly people are left alone; they are the only signs of life in areas where abandonment and death seem to reign supreme. In other parts of the world, we encounter a false belief, deeply rooted in certain local cultures, that causes hostility towards the elderly, who are suspected of using witchcraft to sap the vital energies of the young; when premature death or sickness, or any other misfortune strike the young, the guilt is laid at the door of some elderly person. This mentality must be combatted and eliminated. It is one of those groundless prejudices from which the Christian faith has set us free, yet which continues to fuel generational conflict between the young and the elderly.
Yet if we think about it, this accusation that the elderly “rob the young of their future” is nowadays present everywhere. It appears under other guises even in the most advanced and modern societies. For example, there is now a widespread conviction that the elderly are burdening the young with the high cost of the social services that they require, and in this way are diverting resources from the development of the community and thus from the young. This is a distorted perception of reality. It assumes that the survival of the elderly puts that of the young at risk, that to favour the young, it is necessary to neglect or even suppress the elderly. Intergenerational conflict is a fallacy and the poisoned fruit of a culture of conflict. To set the young against the old is an unacceptable form of manipulation: “What is important is the unity of the different ages of life, which is the real point of reference for understanding and valuing human life in its entirety” (Catechesis, 23 February 2022).
The Psalm cited above – with its plea not to be abandoned in old age – speaks to a conspiracy surrounding the life of the elderly. This may seem an exaggeration, but not if we consider that the loneliness and abandonment of the elderly is not by chance or inevitable, but the fruit of decisions – political, economic, social and personal decisions – that fail to acknowledge the infinite dignity of each person, “beyond every circumstance, state or situation the person may ever encounter” (Declaration Dignitas Infinita, 1). This happens once we lose sight of the value of each individual and people are then judged in terms of their cost, which is in some cases considered too high to pay. Even worse, often the elderly themselves fall victim to this mindset; they are made to consider themselves a burden and to feel that they should be the first to step aside.
Then too nowadays many women and men seek personal fulfilment in a life as independent as possible and detached from other people. Group memberships are in crisis and individualism is celebrated: the passage from “us” to “me” is one of the most evident signs of our times. The family, which is the first and most radical argument against the notion that we can save ourselves by ourselves, has been one of the victims of this individualistic culture. Yet once we grow old and our powers begin to decline, the illusion of individualism, that we need no one and can live without social bonds, is revealed for what it is. Indeed, we find ourselves needing everything, but at a point in life when we are alone, no longer with others to help, with no one whom we can count on. It is a grim discovery that many people make only when it is too late.
Solitude and abandonment have become recurrent elements in today’s social landscape. They have multiple roots. In some cases, they are the result of calculated exclusion, a sort of deplorable “social conspiracy”; in others, tragically, a matter of an individual’s personal decision. In still other cases, the elderly submit to this reality, pretending that it is their free choice. Increasingly, we have lost “the taste of fraternity” (Fratelli Tutti, 33); we find it difficult even to think of an alternative.
In many older persons we can observe the sense of resignation described in the Book of Ruth, which tells the story of the elderly Naomi who, after the death of her husband and children, encourages her two daughters-in-law, Orpah and Ruth, to return to their native towns and their homes (cf. Ruth 1:8). Naomi – like many elderly people today – is afraid of remaining alone, yet she cannot imagine anything different. As a widow, she knows that she is of little value in the eyes of society; she sees herself as a burden for those two young women who, unlike herself, have their whole lives before them. For this reason, she considers it best to step aside, and so she tells her young daughters-in-law to leave her and to build a future in other places (cf. Ruth 1:11-13). Her words reflect the rigid social and religious conventions of her day, which apparently seal her own fate.
The biblical narrative then presents us with two different responses to Naomi’s words and to old age itself. One of the two daughters-in-law, Orpah, who loves Naomi, kisses her and, accepting what seemed the only solution possible, goes her way. Ruth, however, does not leave Naomi’s side and, to her surprise, tells her: “Do not press me to leave you” (Ruth 1:16). Ruth is not afraid to challenge customs and inbred patterns of thought. She senses that the elderly woman needs her and she courageously remains at her side in what will be the start of a new journey for both. To all of us, who are accustomed to the idea that solitude is our unavoidable lot, Ruth teaches that in response to the plea “Do not abandon me”, it is possible to say, “I will not abandon you”. Ruth does not hesitate to subvert what seemed to be an irreversible situation: living alone need not be the only alternative! Not by chance, Ruth – who remained at the side of the elderly Naomi – was an ancestor of the Messiah (cf. Mt 1:5), of Jesus, Immanuel, “God with us”, the one who brings God’s own closeness and proximity to all people, of all ages and states of life.
Ruth’s freedom and courage invite us to take a new path. Let us follow in her footsteps. Let us set out with this young foreign woman and the elderly Naomi, and not be afraid to change our habits and imagine a different kind of future for our elderly. May we express our gratitude to all those people who, often at great sacrifice, follow in practice the example of Ruth, as they care for an older person or simply demonstrate daily closeness to relatives or acquaintances who no longer have anyone else. Ruth, who chose to remain close to Naomi, was then blessed with a happy marriage, a family, a new home. This is always the case: by remaining close to the elderly and acknowledging their unique role in the family, in society and in the Church, we will ourselves receive many gifts, many graces, many blessings!
On this Fourth World Day devoted to them, let us show our tender love for the grandparents and the elderly members of our families. Let us spend time with those who are disheartened and no longer hope in the possibility of a different future. In place of the self-centred attitude that leads to loneliness and abandonment, let us instead show the open heart and the joyful face of men and women who have the courage to say “I will not abandon you”, and to set out on a different path.
To all of you, dear grandparents and elderly persons, and to all those who are close to you I send my blessing, accompanied by my prayers. And I ask you, please, not to forget to pray for me.
Rome, Saint John Lateran, 25 April 2024