July 11. It was nice in the group to have a few men, some of them grandfathers.  Andrew was in an unusual position.   His wife and daughter had been killed in a car accident some years ago.  “I chose to become father and mother to the little boy who survived.  There were some aunts but I had considered it my task to nurture the boy.“  Then he shared how angry he felt that the boy, who had been so committed as a teenager, had stopped going to church.  “I don’t know what he has got into, but what has happened to his faith I keep asking myself?”  “isn’t that the case with so many of our children and grandchildren,” Joyce responded. “Sometimes all we can do is pray for them”:

Reflect, share, scripture:  When Israel was a child, I loved him and out of Egypt I called my son.   My heart recoils within me, my compassion grows warm and tender.  I will not execute my fierce anger.  From Hosea 11:1-9.  Pope Francis. Solitude and abandonment have become recurrent elements in today’s social landscape. They have multiple roots. In some cases, they are the result of calculated exclusion, a sort of deplorable “social conspiracy”; in others, tragically, a matter of an individual’s personal decision. In still other cases, the elderly submit to this reality, pretending that it is their free choice. Increasingly, we have lost “the taste of fraternity” (Fratelli Tutti, 33); we find it difficult even to think of an alternative.  Message to the elderly 2024. ACTION AND PRAYER.   Is it anger or sadness when our young ones go astray?