The Mission Of the Elderly

The Council of the Laity also recalled that Pope John Paul II had addressed older people when he received 8,000 of them in audience March 23, 1984: “Do not be surprised by the temptation of interior solitude. Notwithstanding the complexity of your problems … and the forces which gradually wear you down, and despite the inadequacies of social organizations, the delays of official legislation and a selfish society's failure to understand, you are not and must not consider yourselves to be on the margins of the life of the Church, passive elements in a world in excessive motion, but active subjects of a period in human existence which is rich in spirituality and humanity. You still have a mission to fulfill and a contribution to make.”