1. Prayer
Father, thank you for the promise that age doesn’t preclude flourishing and fruitfulness. By your Spirit and grace, keep us ever full of “sap and green”. You are our Rock and righteousness—our stability and standing in grace are inviolate.
Though outwardly we are “wasting away”, we will not lose heart—in fact, we will thrive in heart; for you will bring to completion the good work you began in us. As our eyesight grows dimmer, let us see the beauty of Jesus with increasingly clarity. As our hearing gets fainter, let us hear your voice louder than ever, declaring us to be your beloved children of grace—in whom you delight, and for whom you’ve prepared an eternity beyond anything we can hope or imagine. So very Amen we gratefully pray, in Jesus’ triumphant and tender name.
2. Meditation
https://youtu.be/jG04iKv3Aks?si=YK21F7Lmf5uOZMYy
3. Song
https://youtu.be/J43UNvSn7FE?si=c-a6aAhDuKa3vuxu
4. Narrative
What Kind of Person Are We Becoming?
Contemplative elder and Benedictine Sister Joan Chittister writes of the humility we must cultivate if we hope to grow in love and compassion as we age:
If we learn anything at all as time goes by and the changing seasons become fewer and fewer, it is that there are some things in life that cannot be fixed. It is more than possible that we will go to our graves with a great deal of personal concerns, of life agendas, left unresolved. . . . So has life been wasted? Has it all been for nothing?
Only if we mistake the meaning of the last period of life. This time of life is not meant to solidify us in our inadequacies. It is meant to free us to mature even more. . . .
This is the period of life when we must begin to look inside our own hearts and souls rather than outside ourselves for the answers to our problems, for the fixing of the problems. This is the time for facing ourselves, for bringing ourselves into the light.
Chittister invites us to consider aging as an opportunity to grow into our true and larger selves:
Now is the time to ask ourselves what kind of person we have been becoming all these years. And do we like that person? Did we become more honest, more decent, more caring, more merciful as we went along because of all these things? And if not, what must we be doing about it now? . . .
Can we begin to see ourselves as only part of the universe, just a fragment of it, not its center? Can we give ourselves to accepting the heat and the rain, the pain and the limitations, the inconveniences and discomforts of life, without setting out to passively punish the rest of the human race for the daily exigencies that come with being human?
Can we smile at what we have not smiled at for years? Can we give ourselves away to those who need us? Can we speak our truth without needing to be right and accept the vagaries of life now—without needing the entire rest of the world to swaddle us beyond any human justification for expecting it? Can we talk to people decently and allow them to talk to us? . . .
Now, this period, this aging process, is the last time we’re given to be more than all the small things we have allowed ourselves to be over the years. But first, we must face what the smallness is, and rejoice in the time we have left to turn sweet instead of more sour than ever.
A burden of these years is the danger of giving in to our most selfish selves.
A blessing of these years is the opportunity to face what it is in us that has been enslaving us, and to let our spirit fly free of whatever has been tying it to the Earth all these years.
Reference:
Joan Chittister, The Gift of Years: Growing Older Gracefully (New York: BlueBridge, 2008), 179–180, 181, 182, 183.
Explore Further. . .
- Read Richard on “falling into mercy” and the second half of life.
- Learn more about this year’s theme Nothing Stands Alone.
- Meet the team behind the Daily Meditations.
5. Meditation
6. Sharing
7. Prayer and intentions
Lord,
Though knowest better than I know myself
that I am
growing older and will some day be old.
Keep me from the fatal
habit of thinking I must say something on every subject
and on every occasion.
Release me from craving to straighten out
everybody's affairs.
Make me thoughtful but not moody;
helpful but not bossy. With my vast store of wisdom, it seems a
pity not to use it all,
but Thou knowest Lord that I want a few
friends at the end.
Keep my mind free from the recital of endless details;
give me wing to get to that point.
Seal my lips on my aches and pains.
They are increasing, and love of rehearsing them is
becoming sweeter as the years go by.
I dare not ask for grace enough to enjoy the tales of others' pains, but help me to endure
them with patience.
I dare not ask for improved memory, but for a growing
humility and a lessing cocksureness when my memory seems to
clash with the memories of others. Teach me the glorious lesson
that occasionally I may be mistaken.
Keep me reasonably sweet; I do not want to be a Saint-
some of them are so hard to live with
- but a sour old person is one
of the crowning works of the devil. Give me the ability to see good
things in unexpected places, and talents in unexpected people.
And, give me, O Lord, the grace to tell them so.
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