Pope Francis signs the prologue unpublished to Cardinal Angelo Scola, advanced by the Italian newspaper “Corierre Della Sera”. It reflects on old age and how it is lived as a grace also becomes a fruitful age, in its last text, which the reason reproduces below:
«I read with emotion these pages that arose from the thought and affection of Angelo Scola, dear brother in the Episcopate and person who has held delicate positions in the Church, for example as rector of the Pontifical Lateran University, later Patriarch of Venice and Archbishop of Milan. First of all, I want to express my thanks for this reflection that combines personal experience and cultural sensitivity as I have rarely read. One, experience, illuminates the other, culture; The second fundamental to the first. In this happy intertwining, life and culture bloom with beauty.
Do not be fooled by the brevity of this book: they are very dense pages, to read and reread. I collect from Angelo’s reflections some points of particular consonance with what my own experience has made me understand. Angelo Scola talks about old age, his old age, which – he writes with a disarming touch of confidence – “I survived with a sudden acceleration and in many unexpected ways.”
Already in the choice of the word with which it is defined, “old”, I find a consonance with the author. Yes, we must not be afraid of old age, we must not be afraid to embrace the fact of age, because life is life and sweetening reality is to betray the truth of things. Returning pride to a term too often considered Missan is a gesture for which we must be grateful to Cardinal Scola. Because saying “old” does not mean “throwing in the trash”, as sometimes induces to think a degraded culture of discard. Saying “old”, on the other hand, means experience, wisdom, discernment, reflection, listening, slowness … values that are very missing! It is true that one becomes old, but that is not the problem: the problem is how it becomes old. If we live this time of life as a grace, and not with resentment; If we welcome the time (even long) in which we experience the decrease in forces, the fatigue of the body that increases, the reflexes that are no longer equal to those of our youth, with a sense of gratitude and thanks, well, even the old age becomes a life age, as Romano Guardini taught us, truly fruitful and that can radiate good.
Angelo Scola highlights the value, human and social, of the grandparents. Several times I have underlined how the role of grandparents is of fundamental importance for the balanced development of young people and, ultimately, for a more peaceful society. Because their example, their word, their wisdom can instill in the youngest long gaze, the memory of the past and the anchor in enduring values. In the midst of the frenzy of our societies, often delivered to the ephemeral and bad taste for appearances, the wisdom of grandparents becomes a lighthouse that shines, illuminates uncertainty and guides grandchildren, which can extract from their experience a “more” than their own daily life.
The words that Angelo Scola dedicates to the subject of suffering, which often comes with old age and, consequently, with death, are beautiful gems of faith and hope. In the argument of this brother Bishop I hear echoes of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger, a “knees” theology, impregnated with prayer and dialogue with the Lord. That is why he said above that they are pages that come out of the “thought and affection” of Cardinal Scola: not only of thought, but also of the affective dimension, which is to what the Christian faith refers, being Christianity not so much an intellectual action or a moral option, but the affection by a person, that Christ who came to meet us and decided to call us friends.
The very conclusion of these pages of Angelo Scola, who are an open heart confession of how he prepares for his final encounter with Jesus, give us a comforting certainty: death is not the end of everything, but the beginning of something. It is a new beginning, as the title wisely points out, because eternal life, that those who love already experience on earth within their daily occupations, is the beginning of something that will not end. And that is why it is a “new” beginning, because we will experience something that we have never fully experienced: eternity.
With these pages in my hands, I would ideally like to make the same gesture that I made as soon as I put the white habit of the Pope, in the Sistine Chapel: embrace with great esteem and affection to Brother Angelo, now, both older than that day of March 2013. But always united by gratitude to that loving god who offers us life and hope whatever is the age we live.