The Vatican on Tuesday published the final thoughts of the late Pope Francis on the afterlife, in an essay he wrote in February, in which he declared that “death is not the end.”
Following the passing of Pope Francis on Easter Monday at the age of 88, the official news portal of the Holy See released a previously unpublished preface that the pontiff wrote on February 7th for Archbishop Emeritus of Milan Cardinal Angelo Scola’s upcoming book Awaiting a New Beginning. Reflections on Old Age, which will hit bookstores this Thursday.
Penned at the outset of his respiratory ailment, which saw him hospitalised for five weeks, Pope Francis wrote: “From Angelo Scola’s reflections I gather some particularly resonant points with what my own experience has taught me. Angelo Scola speaks to us of old age, his old age, which he writes about with a disarmingly intimate touch: ‘it came upon me with sudden acceleration and in many ways unexpectedly’.”
The Pope said that Cardinal Scola’s use of the word “old” particularly resonated with him, declaring that “we must not be afraid of old age, we must not fear embracing becoming old, because life is life, and sugarcoating reality means betraying the truth of things.”
“Because to say ‘old’ does not mean ‘to be discarded,’ as a degraded culture of waste sometimes leads us to think. Saying ‘old’ instead means saying experience, wisdom, knowledge, discernment, thoughtfulness, listening, slowness… Values of which we are in great need!”
“It is true, one becomes old, but this is not the problem: the problem is how one becomes old. If we live this time of life as a grace, and not with resentment; if we accept the time (even a long one) in which we experience diminished strength, the increasing fatigue of the body, the reflexes no longer what they were in our youth — with a sense of gratitude and thankfulness — well then, old age too becomes an age of life which, as Romano Guardini taught us, is truly fruitful and capable of radiating goodness,” he wrote.
Pope Francis also highlighted the fundamental importance that grandparents play in society and in fostering the development of the younger generations, noting that “their wisdom can instil in the young a far-sighted vision, the memory of the past, and the anchoring in values that endure.”
“Amid the frenzy of our societies, often devoted to the ephemeral and the unhealthy taste for appearances, the wisdom of grandparents becomes a shining beacon, shedding light on uncertainty and providing direction to grandchildren, who can draw from their experience something ‘extra’ for their daily lives.”
Pope Francis praised the work of Cardinal Scola for not merely intellectualising the prospect of his own death, but to embrace the prospect with full emotion, which the pontiff said is central to the Christian faith as it is “not so much an intellectual act or a moral choice, but rather the affection for a person — that Christ who came to meet us and decided to call us friends.”
“It is precisely the conclusion of these pages by Angelo Scola, a heartfelt confession of how he is preparing himself for the final encounter with Jesus, that gives us a consoling certainty: death is not the end of everything, but the beginning of something. It is a new beginning, as the title wisely highlights, because eternal life, which those who love already begin to experience on earth within the daily tasks of life — is beginning something that will never end,” he wrote.
“And it is precisely for this reason that it is a ‘new’ beginning, because we will live something we have never fully lived before: eternity.”
“With these pages in hand, I would ideally like to repeat the same gesture I made just after donning the white robe of the papacy in the Sistine Chapel: to embrace with great esteem and affection my brother Angelo — now, both of us older than we were on that day in March 2013. But still united by the gratitude to this loving God who offers us life and hope at every age of our living.”
The Vatican has announced that the funeral for Pope Francis will take place this Saturday at St Peter’s Basilica, after which he will be laid to rest at the St. Mary Major Basilica, the home of his favourite icon of the Virgin Mary.
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