“Does the transmission of faith—and of the meaning of life—follow this path today, of listening to the elderly?” Pope Francis asked in his general audience.

The elderly “will be the ones to sound the alarm, the alert: ‘Be aware, this is corruption, it will bring you nothing,’” Pope Francis said during his general audience on March 16.

But don't make a big show of it either. There is a fine line between being a witness and being a weirdo.

“The rhythms of old age are an indispensable resource for grasping the meaning of life marked by time,” Pope Francis said in his general audience, and so spending time with our elders is not just a “waste of time.”

In his Wednesday audience, Pope Francis spoke against a “culture of waste” that relegates the elderly to the sidelines and discourages young people from learning the wisdom of older generations.

Dating as a young-adult Catholic in non-pandemic times was hard. Covid-19 isolation made it harder. It also gave me a new perspective.