“The caress and the smile”: meeting with grandparents, elders and grandchildren sponsored by the great age foundation

Address of the Holy Father Francis

Paul VI Hall - Saturday, April 27, 2024 

Dear grandparents and dear grandchildren, good morning and welcome!

I greet Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia and all those who collaborated to organize this moment of celebration. And a special thanks goes to the many entertainment personalities who wanted to participate. Thank you! Then, we all have a grandfather or grandmother, two grandfathers two grandmothers. It is a beautiful experience to have a grandparent. But Italy also has a “grandfather,” and that is why I want to greet “the grandfather of Italy” [Lino Banfi], who is here.

It is good to welcome you here, grandparents and grandchildren, young and old. Today we see, as the Psalm says, how good it is to be together (cf. Ps 133). One only has to look at you to see that, because there is love among you. And this is precisely what I would like us to reflect on for a moment: on the fact that love makes us better, makes us richer and makes us wiser at every age.

First, love makes us best. You also show it, that you improve each other by loving each other. And I tell you this as a “grandfather,” with a desire to share the ever-youthful faith that unites all generations. I, too, received it from my grandmother, from whom I first learned about Jesus, who loves us, who never leaves us alone, and who urges us also to be close to one another and never to exclude anyone. I still remember the first prayers my grandmother taught me. It was from her that I heard the story of that family where there was the grandfather who, because he was no longer eating well at the table and getting dirty, was removed, put to eat alone. And it was not a nice thing-Grandma told me this story-it was not a nice thing in fact, it was very bad! So the little grandson -- Grandma continued the story Grandma had told me -- the little grandson had been tinkering for a few days with hammer and nails, and when Father asked him what he was doing, he said, “I'm building a table for you, so you can eat alone when you get old!” This my grandmother taught me, and I have never forgotten this story. Don't forget it either, because it is only by being together with love, not excluding anyone, that you become better, you become more human!

Non solo, ma si diventa anche più ricchi. Come mai? La nostra società è piena di persone specializzate in tante cose, ricca di conoscenze e di mezzi utili per tutti. Se però non c’è condivisione e ognuno pensa solo a sé, tutta la ricchezza va perduta, anzi si trasforma in un impoverimento di umanità. E questo è un grande rischio per il nostro tempo: la povertà della frammentazione e dell’egoismo. La persona egoista pensa di essere più importante se si mette al centro e se ha più cose, più cose… Ma la persona egoista è la più povera, perché l’egoismo impoverisce. Pensiamo, ad esempio, ad alcune espressioni che usiamo: quando parliamo di “mondo dei giovani”, di “mondo dei vecchi”, di “mondo di questo e di quello”… Ma il mondo è uno solo! Ed è composto di tante realtà che sono diverse proprio per potersi aiutare e completare a vicenda: le generazioni, i popoli, e tutte le differenze, se armonizzate, possono rivelare, come le facce di un grande diamante, lo splendore meraviglioso dell’uomo e del creato. Anche questo ci insegna il vostro stare insieme: a non lasciare che le diversità creino spaccature tra noi! A non polverizzare il diamante dell’amore, il tesoro più bello che Dio ci ha donato.

Sometimes we hear phrases like “think of yourself!”, “don't need anyone!”. These are false phrases that deceive people into believing that it is good not to depend on others, to do for oneself, to live as islands, while these are attitudes that only create so much loneliness. Such as when, because of the culture of discarding, the elderly are left alone and have to spend the last years of life away from home and loved ones. What do you think about this? Is this good or not good? No. The elderly should not be left alone; they should live in families, in communities, with the affection of everyone. And if they cannot live in the family, we have to go and find them and be near them. Let's think about this for a moment: isn't a world in which no one has to be afraid to end his or her days alone much better? Clearly it is. So let us build this world, together, not only by devising care programs, but by cultivating different projects of existence, in which the passing years are not considered a loss that diminishes someone, but an asset that grows and enriches all: and as such are appreciated and not feared.

And this brings us to the last aspect: love making us wiser. It is curious: love makes us wiser. Dear grandchildren, your grandparents are the memory of a world without memory, and «when a society loses its memory, it is finished» (Address to the Community of Sant'Egidio, June 15, 2014). I ask: What does a society that loses its memory look like? [they answer in chorus: “finished”] Finished. We must not lose our memory. Listen to grandparents, especially when they teach you by their love and testimony to cultivate the most important affections, which are not obtained by 2 force, do not appear by success, but fill life.

It is no accident that it was two elders, I like to think two grandfathers, Simeon and Anna, who recognized Jesus when he was brought to the Temple by Mary and Joseph (cf. Lk 2:22-38). It was these two grandparents who recognized Jesus, first of all. They welcomed him, took him in their arms and understood - they alone understood - what was happening: that is, that God was there, present, and looking at them with the eyes of a Child. Do you understand? These two old people, they alone realized, seeing the little Jesus, that the Messiah had arrived, the Savior everyone was waiting for. It was the old people who understood the Mystery.

Older people use glasses - almost all of them - but they see far. How come? They see far because they have lived so many years, and they have so many things to teach: for example, how bad war is. I, a long time ago, learned this from my own grandfather, who had lived through ’14, at the Piave River, the First World War, and who with his stories made me understand that war is a horrible thing, never to be done. He also taught me a beautiful song, which I still remember. Would you like me to say it? [they answer, “Yes!”]. Think well, this the soldiers sang at the Piave: “General Cadorna wrote to the Queen: if you want to look at Trieste, look at it on postcards!” It is beautiful! The soldiers sang it.

Seek out your grandparents and do not marginalize them, for your own sake: «The marginalization of the elderly [...] corrupts all seasons of life, not just that of old age» (Catechesis, June 1, 2022). In the other diocese I used to visit old people's homes, and always asked, “How many children do you have?” - “Many, many!” - “And do they come to visit you?” - “Yes, yes, always - I remember one case - they always come.” And when I went out, the nurse would say, “How good that woman is, how she covers her children: they come twice a year, no more.” Grandparents are generous, they can cover the bad things. Please look for your grandparents, don't marginalize them, it's for your own good. The marginalization of the elderly corrupts all seasons of life, not just the season of old age. I like to repeat this. You, on the other hand, learn wisdom from their strong love, and also from their fragility, which is a “magisterium” capable of teaching without the need for words, a true antidote against the hardening of the heart: it will help you not to flatten yourselves on the present and to savor life as relationship (cf. Benedict XVI, Greeting in the family home “Long live the elderly”, Nov. 12, 2012). But not only that: when you, grandparents and grandchildren, old and young, are together, when you see and hear from each other often, when you care for each other, your love is a breath of clean air that refreshes the world and society and makes us all stronger, beyond the bonds of kinship.

It is the message Jesus also gave us on the cross, when «seeing his mother and beside her the disciple whom he loved, he said to his mother, Woman, behold your son! Then he said to the disciple, Behold your mother! And from that hour the disciple received her with him» (Jn. 19,26-27). With those words, he entrusted us with a miracle to perform: that of loving us all as one big family.

Dear friends, thank you for being here, and thank you for what you do with the Great Age Foundation! Together, united, you are an example and a gift to all. I remember you in prayer, bless you, and I commend you, don't forget to pray for me. Thank you, thank you so much!

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