Importance of honouring our elders stressed by Offaly columnist

“EVEN to your old age and grey hairs I am He, I am He who will sustain you. I have made you and I will carry you; I will sustain you and I will rescue you." (Isaiah 46:4).

This last week, we celebrated Our Grandparents and Our Elderly Day, we paused to honour the wisdom, love, and legacy of our elders. Scripture reminds us that aging is not a fading of worth, but a sacred season of life held firmly in God’s faithful hands. God promises not only to walk with us when we are young and strong, but also to carry us when we grow older, to sustain us when strength wanes, and to value us always.

Our grandparents and our elderly and all those who have walked ahead of us, are living testaments to God’s enduring presence. Their stories are treasures, their prayers are anchors, and their faith continues to shape generations. May we show them honour, gratitude, and care, not just for these special days, but every day.

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Do not cast me off

There is a cry that echoes through the pages of Scripture and into the quiet corners of nursing homes and empty houses today. It is the cry of the aged, the forgotten, the once strong now made frail by time: "Do not cast me off in my old age; forsake me not when my strength is spent.” (Psalm 71:9). In a world that so often glorifies youth, speed, and innovation, this ancient prayer from Psalm 71 rings out like a holy plea, raw, dignified, and profoundly human. “Do not cast me off in my old age.” It is not simply the voice of one person, but the collective cry of a generation often made invisible, our grandparents, our elders, the ones who once held us, taught us, built the very world we now take for granted.

There is wisdom in every wrinkle, a story behind every slow step. And yet, how easily society forgets. The psalmist gives voice to what too many fear: that once our strength fades, so too might our worth in the eyes of others.This last week, as we reflected on the Fifth World Day for Our Grandparents and the Elderly, let that cry continue to pierce our hearts. Let it awaken in us the sacred responsibility we carry, not just as individuals, but as a society, as families, as communities of faith.

A heavy heart

I write with a heavy heart, stirred by both memory and the painful realities of our time. The recent RTÉ Prime Time Investigates documentary did not just reveal the tragic neglect of our elderly in some care settings it revealed something deeper, more troubling: a cultural forgetfulness, a spiritual amnesia. We have forgotten who we are when we forget those who raised us, loved us, prayed for us, and quietly built the lives we now enjoy.

How did we arrive here in a country that prides itself on family, hospitality, and Christian values, where some of our elders spend their final days in loneliness, in neglect, in silence? I think of my own grandmother, Nana Scully, and I am flooded with memories. I remember her prayers before bed, her steady hand guiding me to Mass at St. Brigid’s in Clara, her whispered love as she slipped me money for a football I wasn’t meant to have. It wasn’t just generosity; it was a knowing, a passing on of love, of faith, of family. She planted something eternal in me. And it lives on in my daughters who, when their Nana fell, rushed to help her with instinctive, unspoken compassion.

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Living memory

That is the heart of family. That is the legacy of our elders, not only the foundation they built beneath us, but the spirit they still quietly pour into our lives. They are not a burden. They are a blessing. They are not fading relics of the past, they are radiant beacons, still guiding us if we will only look up.

The late great Pope Francis reminds us that grandparents are the “living memory” of our families. They hold within them the stories, the prayers, the dreams, the bruises, and the hopes of generations. When we cut ourselves off from them through neglect, impatience, or the idol of busyness, we sever something essential in our souls. I’ve seen in tribal communities in Africa and Asia how the elderly are honoured and revered as keepers of wisdom, as the voice of the past speaking into the future. They are never put aside. They are the center of the circle, the heartbeat of the community. And I wonder why not here? Why not now? We must examine our consciences. Not just in response to scandals in the headlines, but in the daily choices we make to visit or to ignore, to include or to exclude, to listen or to dismiss. Because loneliness is not inevitable. It is the result of decisions, social, political, personal that place productivity over personhood, convenience over compassion.

Watching the door

Mother Teresa once said, “The most terrible poverty is loneliness, and the feeling of being unloved.” I believe this poverty is more present than we care to admit, behind the curtains of a neighbour’s home, in the forgotten bed of a care facility, even within our own extended families. The elderly wait watching the door, hoping it opens. Hoping someone remembers. Hoping someone cares. We are called to be that someone.

As Christians, we believe in the sanctity of every life, from the beginning to the very end. The wrinkled hands that once held ours as toddlers now tremble. The backs that once carried burdens for us now stoop. The eyes that once looked on us with unconditional love may no longer recognise us, but their dignity has not diminished. Their worth is not measured in what they can still “do,” but in who they are: beloved children of God, made in His image, and never abandoned by Him.

Let this be the week

Let us become a people who echo the voice of God, the God who never abandons His children, never forgets, never turns away. If we claim to follow Christ, then we must go to the margins and the margins include our elderly who feel left behind in a world rushing past them. Let this be the week where we return to the heart of the Gospel. Let this be the week where we call, visit, write, remember. Let this be the week we gather again at the table, not just the young, but the young at heart, the aged, the wisdom-keepers, the faithful ones.

We need their stories. We need their presence. And most of all, they need ours. Because how we treat our elders is not just a reflection of our character, it is a reflection of our future. As the parable of The Wooden Bowl reminds us, our children are watching. They learn from our example. If we cast aside the elderly, we teach our children to do the same. But if we honour them, include them, lift them up when they fall and we build a legacy of love that will ripple into generations yet to come.

Thought for the week

As your thought for the week, let us allow these words to challenge and change us. Let us honour our elders not with pity, but with reverence. Not with mere sentiment, but with action. Listen to their stories. Sit by their side. Ask them what they still dream about, what still makes them laugh, cry, hope. Let them know they are not forgotten, not cast aside, not alone. Because love that truly reflects God’s heart never discards. It draws nearer. And one day, each of us will whisper this same prayer. May we live now in such a way that, when we do, we are met with love not silence. So let us say with our hearts, our words, and our actions: We will not cast you off. We will walk with you. We will love you until the very end.

Because one day, we will be the ones waiting at the door. Let me leave you with this Prayer for Our Grandparents and the Elderly that I found in my Nana Scully's prayerbook, "Lord Jesus, You were born of the Virgin Mary, the daughter of Saints Joachim and Anne. Look with love on grandparents the world over. Protect them! They are a source of enrichment for families, for the Church, and for all of society. Support them! As they grow older, may they continue to be for their families, strong pillars of Gospel faith, guardians of noble ideals, living treasuries of sound religious traditions. Make them teachers of wisdom and courage that they may pass on to future generations the fruits of their mature human and spiritual experience. Lord Jesus, Help families and society to value the presence and role of grandparents and the elderly. May they never be ignored or excluded, but always encounter respect and love. Help them to live serenely and to feel welcomed in all the years of life which You give them. Mary, Mother of all the living, keep grandparents and the elderly constantly in your care, accompany them on their earthly pilgrimage, and by your prayers,

grant that all families may one day be reunited in our heavenly homeland, where you await all humanity for the great embrace of life without end. Amen.