Memories of grandparents
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This is the hour of the grandparents
One last word, entrusted to Scripture and to Pope Francis: this is the hour in which grandparents must dream again.
“After this, I will pour out my spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall become prophets; your old men shall dream dreams, your young men shall see visions. Even upon the slaves, men and women, in those days I will pour out my spirit.”
Joel 3:1-2
“This lack of role models, of witnesses, this lack of grandparents, of fathers able to narrate dreams, does not allow the younger generations to ‘have visions’, and they stand still. It does not allow them to make plans, since the future breeds insecurity, distrust, fear. Only the witness of our parents — seeing that it was possible to fight for something worthwhile — will help them to lift their gaze […]. If we want ‘visions’, let our grandparents tell us their stories, let them share their dreams, so that we may have prophecies of tomorrow. And here I would like to pause for a moment. This is the hour to encourage grandparents to dream. We need the dreams of grandparents and we need to listen to these dreams. Salvation comes from here.
This is the hour of the grandparents
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It is no coincidence that, when the child Jesus is brought to the Temple, he is welcomed by two ‘grandparents’ who had recounted their dreams: the elderly Simeon had ‘dreamed’, the Spirit had promised him that he would see the Lord. This is the hour — and it is not a metaphor — this is the hour in which grandparents must dream. They must be urged to dream, to tell us something. They feel cast aside, when not despised. We like, in our pastoral plans, to say: ‘This is the hour of courage’, ‘this is the hour of the laity’, ‘this is the hour…’. But what if I were to say, this is the hour of the grandparents? ‘But, Father, you are going backwards, you are pre-conciliar!’. It is the hour of the grandparents: let the grandparents dream, and the young will learn to prophesy and to bring about — with their strength, their imagination, their work — the dreams of the grandparents. This is the hour of the grandparents!”
Address by Pope Francis at the opening of the Ecclesial Convention of the Diocese of Rome, 16 June 2016.
This is the hour of the grandparents!
Collected by Riccardo Beretta · AVO Concorezzo volunteer