Choice of civilization
“God’s dream is realized in history through the care of children and grandparents. Children ‘are the future, the strength, those who will advance society. It is in them that we place our hope ‘; grandparents ‘have the memory of the family. They are the ones who have passed on the faith.” Pope Francis quoted from the message of the Permanent Council of Italian Bishops (CEI) – titled “Men and women for Life: following the footsteps of Saint Teresa of Calcutta” – for the 39th national Day for Life (February 2017). Taking care of grandparents and children – the bishops underlined – “requires resisting the siren calls of irresponsible economy that causes wars and death.” Educating to life means joining a civil revolution that remedies a throwaway culture, that repairs the culture of waste, the logic of low birth rates, of plummeting demography, whilst ensuring the protection of every human life from the moment of conception to its natural termination.”
The message for the next Day for Life, celebrated on February 5 2017, refers to children’s dreams. It is not a poetic licence. What do children dream? They usually dream things they are promised by adults: a beautiful day, a prize, an excursion with the family, a time for leisure. In addition to this, adults may promise something even greater that accompanies their children, instilling lifelong security into them. When parents bring a child into the world they promise him care and warmth, attention and closeness, faith and hope. These promises that are incorporated in one term:
love.
A mother and a father welcoming their newborn child promise to love him, to take care of him and to ensure stability and attention. This promise cannot be betrayed, for children need to see their future with hope. The most authentic realm where a new life can be cared for and raised is the realm of Love. Now things appear to be changing because desires prevail, and in most cases they turn into rights. The desire to have a child led to overcome the family, and, worse still, to overcome the complementariness between man and woman. The child that is a son of desire has a pre-conditioned future: he could be rejected, and he must keep up to expectations. Love is something different. Love is the promise that a man and a woman make to a child, pledging to commit themselves for him at his most defenceless stage.
Protecting new life is an act of faith for the future.
Children are associated with their grandparents, perhaps more frequently today. This is due to the fact that old people take care of and assist their grandchildren when the parents are busy or at work. Such closeness is not only a need. It’s also a sign of complementariness. Children are the future; old people are the memory of life. They are the teachers of what is essential. The elderly transmit what they have learned in their long life and donate it as gems of wisdom. As written in the Scriptures: “Do not disregard the discourse of the aged, for they themselves learned from their fathers; because from them you will gain understanding, and learn how to give an answer in time of need” Sirach (8:9). More than often grandparents are the first and most incisive catechists. Celebrating the Day for Life means keeping together the generations inside the family: grandparents, parents, and children. At a time of strong individualism, characterised by absolute autonomy, the family reminds us that we are all part of a network of relations. The family is the antidote to the society of profit because its relationships are marked by gratuitousness. Old people teach the young, who are too much in love with themselves, that there is greater joy in giving than in receiving. Children and old people are the opposite poles of life. But they are the most vulnerable and often also the most neglected. A society that abandons its children and marginalizes the elderly is cutting its roots and obscuring its future. We were reminded of this some time ago by the Holy Father: “Every time a child is abandoned and an elderly person cast out, not only is it an act of injustice, but it also ensures the failure of that society” (audience at the Pontifical Council for the Family, October 25 2013). Instead, taking care of the young and of the elderly is a choice of civilization. It also represents the future: children, young people, will advance society with their force and their youth. Old people will advance it with their wisdom and their memories.
