July 31st. Sunday 18C .  Fr Patrick said, “ It is good that we end our month for grandparents and the elderly on a thoughtful note.  Last week we celebrated. This week we look ahead as well as looking back.  You older parishioners have toiled away and what do you have to show for it?  Maybe you have become wealthy or maybe not.  You can’t take material wealth with you in any case when you die.  What you can take is the knowledge that you have tried.  Think about how hard and how successful you have been in bringing up your children and even your grandchildren.  Many of us are disappointed that our young people do not go to church. Did we work in vain?   Only you can answer that.  If you have tried your best, God knows and can give you peace of mind.  A valuable gift the elderly have to share is prayer.  Until your last day your prayer for yourself and others can sustain you, support you and bring you peace. 

Scripture:   God said to him, Fool! This day I will require your soul, and the things you have prepared, whose will they be?”  So is he spiritually poor who lays up treasure for himself, and is not rich towards God.”  Luke 12:13-21.

Pope Francis:  We, elderly, are called to be artisans of the revolution of tenderness in our world!   Let us do so by  learning to make ever more frequent and better use of the most valuable instrument at our disposal and, the one best suited to our age: prayer.  Let us too become poets of prayer: let us develop a taste for finding our own words, let us once again take up those taught by the Word of God.   Our trustful prayer can accompany the cry of pain of those who suffer, and it can help change hearts.   We can be “the enduring chorus of a great spiritual sanctuary, where prayers of supplication and songs of praise sustain the community that toils and struggles in the field of life.   From Message for the Day of Grandparents and the Elderly 2022.  

EDMONTON AND LAC STE. ANNE, ALBERTA — Pope Francis on July 26 appealed to Canadian Catholics to safeguard the memory of grandparents and the elderly as a necessary means of preventing the mistakes of the past and for building a better future.

Remembering one’s ancestors, said Francis, is a means of building “a future in which the history of violence and marginalization suffered by our Indigenous brothers and sisters is never repeated.”