Fr Jim Cogley
I often used to ask one of the oldest men in our community, recently deceased, how he was doing and his answer was always the same, ‘Thank God, I am ageing well’. What better way to live out one’s latter years than to age well. In our society so many are terrified of growing old and so a fortune is spent on age defying treatments. A nip here, a tuck there, some botox somewhere else. Perhaps even a toupee to cover up the strand long after the tide has gone out! Paradoxically, the ones who are obsessed with remaining young in appearance always seem to be those who become old looking the fastest. We see this particularly in the life of celebrities who in early years owed much of their status to their looks more than their intelligence or achievements.
Society can show us lots of poisonous examples of old age and all the negatives that it brings, but we will also see many around us who are bearers of good news. They have managed to grow old gracefully and you only have to look in their contented faces in order to see that to be the case. They have tapped into that part of themselves, which we call the heart, that can never grow old, and for the person who remains young at heart, while their body may wear out it will never rust out. It would be nice to approach older age with open hands and to see it not as a time to be feared but also as a time of grace.
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