Writing to his peers, Catholics who have reached a venerable age like he has, Pope Francis told older Catholics that God is close to them and still has plans for their lives. “I was called to become the Bishop of Rome when I had reached, so to speak, retirement age, and thought I would not be doing anything new,” said the Pope, who is 84 now and was elected when he was 76. “The Lord is always – always – close to us. He is close to us with new possibilities, new ideas, new consolations, but always close to us. You know that the Lord is eternal; he never, ever goes into retirement,” the Pope wrote in his message for the Church’s first celebration of the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly.
The message was released at the Vatican on Tuesday in anticipation of the celebration on July 25, the Sunday closest to the feast of Sts Joachim and Anne, Jesus’ grandparents. “Think about it: what is our vocation today, at our age? To preserve our roots, to pass on the Faith to the young and to care for the little ones,” he wrote. “Never forget this.” “There is no retirement age from the work of proclaiming the Gospel and handing down traditions to your grandchildren. You just need to set out and undertake something new.”