In the Catholic Church, July is the month of the Gospel of the Nativity of Mary”).. July is also the memorial month of Sts. Anne and Joachim, Jesus’s grandparents. The sanctified couple are patron saints of grandparents; therefore, they are models of World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, which Pope Francis instituted in 2021. The special day is celebrated every year on the fourth Sunday of July close to the feast day of Sts. Anne and Joachim on 26 July.
Sts. Anne and Joachim are not mentioned anywhere in the Bible, rather their story is narrated in the 2nd-century Protoevangelium of James (“First Gospel of James”) and the 3rd-century Evangelium de nativitate Mariae (“Gospel of the Nativity of Mary”). According to these sources, Anne and Joachim did not have children in their senior years. In her barrenness, Anne solemnly promised God that, if given a child, she would dedicate him or her to the Lord’s service. Soon after that, an angel announced to the couple that Anne would conceive and give birth to a miraculous child. Indeed, in their old age, Anne conceived and gave birth to a baby girl whom she named Mary – the fruit that they bore in their old age.
Messages To Grandparents
A 1970, an article titled “The Old in the Country of the Young” with a gloomy cover line, “The Unwanted Generation” featured in TIME magazine. The article was about growing old in America. Here is an extract from the article,
It is as though the aged were an alien race to which the young will never belong. Indeed, there is a distinct discrimination against the old that has been called ageism. In its simplest form, says Psychiatrist Robert Butler of Washington, B.C., ageism is just “not wanting to have all these ugly old people around.” Butler believes that in 25 or 30 years, ageism will be a problem equal to racism. It is not just cruelty and indifference that cause ageism and underscore the obsolescence of the old. It is also the nature of modern Western culture. In some societies, explains Anthropologist Margaret Mead, “the past of the adults is the future of each new generation,” and therefore is taught and respected. Thus, primitive families stay together and cherish their elders. But in the modern U.S., family units are small, the generations live apart, and social changes are so rapid that to learn about the past is considered irrelevant. In this situation, new in history, says Miss Mead, the aged are “a strangely isolated generation,” the carriers of a dying culture. Ironically, millions of these shunted-aside old people are remarkably able: medicine has kept them young at the same time that technology has made them obsolete.
This year Pope Francis consoled the elderly with these words from his message for the second World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly under the theme “In old age, they will still bear fruit”,
Old age is no time to give up and lower the sails, but a season of enduring fruitfulness: a new mission awaits us and bids us look to the future. ‘The special sensibility that those of us who are elderly, have the concerns, thoughts and the affections that make us human should once again become the vocation of many. It would be a sign of our love for the younger generations’. This would be our own contribution to the revolution of tenderness, a spiritual and non-violent revolution in which I encourage you, dear grandparents and elderly persons, to take an active role.
Grandparents hold irreplaceable places in our hearts. Most of these old men and women are angels on earth. Our grandparents are the chief members of our families as they are strong bridges between generations. They are the ones who take care of families despite them being the oldest members of the family. Our grandparents are problem solvers – they are extinguishers of family feuds. Moreover, they are counselors as they are gifted in calming one`s disturbing emotions; they are also the family`s advisors, midwives, herbalists, chefs, babysitters, economists, educators (life lessons, faith, and culture), agriculturalists, and prayer warriors. These pillars of strength are always ready to go an extra mile for their families. Pope Francis reiterated this when he said,
Watch how a grandfather or a grandmother look at their grandchildren, how they embrace their grandchildren – that tenderness, free of any human distress, that has conquered the trials of life and is able to give love freely, the loving nearness of one person to others.
