The final illness and death of Pope Francis this past spring reintroduced a number of questions that have arisen during modern papacies. Specifically, these often deal with a pope’s ability to carry on his ministry in the face of advanced age and sickness. But such concerns are not limited to the pope. Perhaps a more useful area of exploration, especially for those in their 50s, 60s and beyond, is considering our own thoughts and plans for aging.
How do you view your own aging process and what you want to do with your life as you grow older?
There is no one template for aging. Aging is marked by diversity, not uniformity. Getting older has challenges, but it also has opportunities. Unlike the pope, whose circumstances are restricted by his office, most of us have the freedom to consider how we might want to spend our time as we progress from late middle age to old age.
That freedom is relative and, for many, a privilege that comes because of financial security and good health. For those who are poor, who have chronic or life-limiting illnesses or have extraordinary family demands, getting older may mean just trying to face each day.
It remains true, however, that in our country and throughout most of the world, people are living longer lives, capable of independence and activity for much of those long lives and facing the question of what they want to do with these extra years of life. I would like to address the use of this gift of years from the viewpoint of St. Ignatius of Loyola and his spiritual perspective.
Spiritual planning
At the beginning of the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius’ guide for retreatants seeking to find God’s will for them and conform their lives to that will, he puts forth a brief description as a basis for what follows. A central point of this “Principle and Foundation” is that the events of our lives, good and bad, long life or short, are means to the end of finding God and achieving our destiny of eternal life in love with the God who created us. To attain this end for which we have been created, Ignatius advises: “on our part we ought not to seek health rather than sickness, wealth rather than poverty, honor rather than dishonor, a long life rather than a short one…we ought to desire and choose only that which is more conducive to the end for which we are created.”
Individuals are now routinely living into their 80s and beyond, and it is increasingly common to meet people who are in their 90s or even over 100 years old. It appears that God is providing many with “a long life rather than short one” (via the work of public hygiene, better nutrition and more effective treatments for illnesses). This raises the question of what God might be offering us with these added years: How are we to use these years in ways that are “more conducive to the end for which we were created”?
Many Americans wisely spend a lot of time doing financial planning and considering various options for their future as they grow older. But when you are planning for your future, have you ever considered a spiritual retirement plan? In line with Ignatius, might it be that these extended years are God’s gift, calling you to a future with new possibilities to deepen your relationship and encounter God in ways that may not have been possible in the busyness of the earlier portions of your life?
My suggestion is that prudent planning for aging requires a spiritual dimension—and attending to these added years as a gift to come closer to God. We can choose to ignore our aging and simply try to stay put in our jobs and habits. This could be a result of fearing change, having mistaken ideas about our irreplaceability or avoiding the future. We may only focus on the aspects of aging that are presented favorably in the media: tennis, golf, travel and a life of leisure and personal enjoyment. We may ignore that, inevitably, aging will end and bring us before God.
There is nothing wrong with tennis, golf, travel and leisure. But what might God be offering you to discover rather than lots of activities and recreation?
The gift of added years
In another section of the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius proposes that the retreatant spend some time in prayer and consider three classes of persons. Ignatius presents three individuals, each of whom has received a large sum of money. One person, while not wanting to displease God, does not really think about what God might desire to be done. A second individual, while also concerned about God, decides to use the money in the ways he or she sees fit. As Ignatius notes: “no decision is made…to go to where God is, even though that would be the better state for this individual.”
The third person, who is obviously the one that Ignatius is commending as the ideal, only wants to use the money “solely according to what God our Lord will move one’s will to choose, and also according to what the person himself or herself will judge to be better for the service and praise of the Divine Majesty.”
It does not take too much imagination to transpose Ignatius’ meditation on the three classes of persons into a meditation on how to address the gift of added years that are given to so many. Ignatius subtitles this meditation with the note that it is “to aid one toward embracing what is better.”
How will we spend this gift of added years and look to our longevity? Are we going to avoid the question? Are we going to simply live in the way that is pleasing to us and let God come along for the ride? Or might we be called to give those years to God so that we can discover and enjoy God more deeply? How do you embrace “which is better” with each added year?
Betty Friedan, well known for her groundbreaking feminist book The Feminine Mystique, wrote in her 1993 book about aging, The Fountain of Age: “The problem is…how to break through the cocoon of our illusory youth and risk a new stage in life…to step out into the true existential unknown of these new years of life open to us, and to find our own terms for living it.” I like her encouragement to step out into the unknown, but would suggest that the deepest opportunity is to find the ways in which God wishes us to live it.
My suggestion is that as we consider our aging future, along with all the needed attention to finances, living situation and planning for enjoyable activities like travel, recreation and spending time with family and friends, we also think and pray about what we would hope to do in our relationship with God—and where those holy desires are leading us.
You might want to go to daily Mass, or do more spiritual reading; perhaps dive into the Bible, or look to ways in which you can serve others in a variety of capacities that would bring the gifts you have received over time to benefit others. This kind of discernment takes time, and it is useful to have a trusted advisor, friend or spiritual director to help you think this through. But this process honors the gift of years that has been given. It may be that after all our planning, illness or other challenges derail what we hoped for. But, as Ignatius would remind us from the “Principle and Foundation,” that too is part of God’s plan. Even those events that would reasonably be called misfortunes are not without God’s presence and invitation.
Men and women religious
Thinking about aging and how to live those years faithfully provides different kinds of challenges for priests and religious men and women. First is the lack of children and a spouse who encourage an aging partner or parent to consider and plan for aging. Second, and accompanying this lack of prodding to think about the future, there can be a kind of inertia where aging religious may simply continue in a long-held role and either not consider a change or, worse, dread doing something other than what they have been doing for years.
This points to a third challenge: The diminishment in numbers of priests and religious, and the ongoing demand for the ministries they perform, can render many feeling themselves indispensable and that the future of the church or their religious congregation is dependent on their continuing to work until they drop dead in the harness.
Fourth—and this may be especially challenging for small religious congregations and aging women religious—the real burden of caring for their sick brothers and sisters in religion may truly make it difficult for them to think about other ways to age than simply continuing to work. A fifth and perhaps more pervasive challenge than we realize is a spoken or assumed belief that religious do not retire. Thinking about retreating from active ministry can seem like one is failing in one’s religious commitment.
These challenges for aging priests and religious are real. I do believe, however, that just like for lay people, the added years they have received as a gift represent an invitation to discernment and seeking of God’s will for them as they age. There may be real community needs that keep sisters, brothers and priests doing more active work than their lay contemporaries, just as for some lay people family difficulties, the burden of illness and other problems do not provide an opportunity to consider other possibilities as they age.
But it is important to remember that looking to God for a new way to minister, to be present to God, to continue one’s own vocation, does not mean we are turning our back on our calling. Rather, it can be a loving response to the call that has matured and faces new opportunities and possibilities with advanced years. One is not retiring from one’s vocation, but listening and responding to how God is calling you to live that vocation with increasing years.
For all of us—popes, laity, aging priests and religious—there is a call from God as we grow older: “For I know well the plans I have in mind for you…plans for your welfare and not for woe, so as to give you a future of hope.” (Jer 29:11)
