Dear co-travelers,
As we are already or enter the threshold of the category of senior citizens in consecrated life, our outlook on people, events, achievements, and even values of the past changes. Some, of course, continue to be immersed in various activities and some even continue to hold on to responsible positions in various capacities, which make them unaware of their seniority even though they begin to feel physically weaker and mentally less alert than before. They do not want to accept the fact that they are ‘seniors’ and want to continue as before, and even want to achieve more! They even think that they are loved and appreciated by the confreres, co-sisters, and others for continuing to hold on to their position and achievements. They feel that they are non-substitutable!
Obvious Changes
Most seniors, instead, begin to feel various symptoms of old age, like tiredness, lower physical energy and alertness, bodily pains, sicknesses (high blood pressure, arrhythmia, fibrillation of the heart, high glycemia, etc.), constant visits to the hospital, loneliness, less enthusiasm, etc. Even if we do not want to use the word ‘retired’/’pensioned’/’senior’, the fact remains. We may prefer to address ourselves as “differently-abled”! We become aware that the past is already gone and it’s not worth holding on to it. We become less attached to things and stop collecting. We begin to get rid of things, most of which are unnecessary or useless. We begin to forget our successes and achievements. Even those who surround us have already forgotten them. Instead, they seem to remember our failures perhaps more than our achievements! We realize that we have more friends in heaven than here on earth. An awareness dawns on us that it’s time to give a thought to our last and ultimate goal! Few friends and companions who still live have become seniors like us, confronting the same existential situation/problems as us. We even lose interest in spending time with them as we used to in earlier times. These experiences lead us to hold on to the present much more than the past or future, and rightly so. We become more aware that what we ‘are’ is more important than what we ‘do’. We have all the time “to be” than “to do” so many things. It is this awareness that makes us more human and more compassionate towards all and everything. We begin to leave aside the concept of religious life as one of solving problems, one’s own or of others, and start living the present in its fullness. We give more importance to spirituality than religion and religious practices!
As compassionate human beings, we seniors become aware, among other things, that we are gifted with deep sentiments of the heart more than the intellect. Thus, for example, we begin to appreciate the beauty of nature, which is the expression of the creative art of God Himself. We recognize that every being that exists is verum, bonum et pulchrum (true, good, and beautiful). What is true is good and what is good is beautiful. What is beautiful is also good and true. Beauty is the splendour of good and truth. Beauty has the same immense extension of being, truth, and good. We start enjoying the beauty of nature.
Beauty All Around Us
We become more aware that we are surrounded by beauty. We are immersed in beauty! Beauty appears to us and makes itself seen in obvious ways: beautiful is a flower, beautiful is a mountain cliff, beautiful is the sky quilted with stars in the dark night, beautiful is the mother bird who picks up her little ones and brings them to a safer place, beautiful is the child who plays with friends, beautiful is the boy who gives his seat on the bus to the elderly, beautiful are the callused hands of the worker, beautiful is the caress of the father, of the mother, beautiful is the night of the one who has assisted a sick person in the hospital, beautiful are the hands of two enemies who hug and make peace, beautiful is the choice to give oneself to God for all life…. How much beauty around us…!
Fr Scaria Thuruthiyil SDB
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