Pope Francis’ unpublished text: « Death is not the end of everything, but the beginning of something, a new beginning »
The unpublished preface signed by Pope Francis to the book by Angelo Scola: « If you live old age as a grace, old age also becomes a fruitful age »
I read with emotion these pages that came out of the thought and affection of Angelo Scola, dear brother in the episcopate and a person who has covered delicate services in the church, for example in being rector of the Pontifical Lateran University, later patriarch of Venice and Archbishop of Milan. First of all I want to show him all my thanks for this reflection that combines personal experience and cultural sensitivity as a few times I happened to read. One, experience, illuminates the other, culture; The second substantiates the first. In this happy intertwining, life and culture bloom with beauty.
Do not deceive the short shape of this book: they are very dense pages, to read and reread. I caught the reflections of Angelo drain some ideas of particular consonance with how much my experience made me understand. Angelo Scola talks about old age, of his old age, who – he writes with a touch of disarming confidence – « came to me with a sudden acceleration and in many respects unexpected ».
Already in the choice of the word with which he self-defines, « old », I find a consonance with the author. Yes, we must not be afraid of old age, we must not fear to embrace becoming old, because life is life and sweetening reality means betraying the truth of things. Returning pride to a term too often considered unhealthy is a gesture of which to be grateful to Cardinal Scola. Because saying « old » does not mean « to be thrown away », as sometimes a degraded culture of the waste leads to think. To say old, on the other hand, means to say experience, wisdom, wisdom, discernment, weightiness, listening, slowness … values we need extremely!
True, you become old, but this is not the problem: the problem is how you become old. If you live this time of life like a grace, and not with resentment; If you welcome the time (also long) in which we experience reduced forces, the effort of the body that increases, the reflections no longer equal to those of our youth, with a sense of gratitude and gratitude, well, old age also becomes a age of life, as Romano Guardini taught us, truly fruitful and which can radiate the good.
Angelo Scola highlights the value, human and social, of the grandparents.
Several times I stressed that the role of grandparents is of fundamental importance for the balanced development of young people, and ultimately for a more peaceful society. Because their example, their word, their wisdom can instill a long look in the youngest, the memory of the past and the anchoring to values that persist. Within the frenzy of our societies, often voted for the rent and the unhealthy taste of appearing, the wisdom of the grandparents becomes a lighthouse that shines, illuminates uncertainty and gives the direction to grandchildren who can draw from their experience a « more » than their daily life.
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The words that Angelo Scola dedicates to the theme of suffering, which often is established in becoming old, and consequently to death, are precious gems of faith and hope. In argomenting this brother Bishop I feel echoing the theology of Hans Urs von Balthasar and Joseph Ratzinger, a theology « made on his knees », imbued with prayer and dialogue with the Lord. For this reason I said just above that these are pages that came out « from the thought and affection » of Cardinal Scola: not only by thought, but also from the emotional dimension, which is that which Christian faith refers, being Christianity not so much an intellectual action or a moral choice, but the affection to a person, that Christ who has come to meet us and decided to call us friends.
Just the conclusion of these pages of Angelo Scola, who are an open heart confession of how he is preparing for the final meeting with Jesus, give us a consoling certainty: Death is not the end of everything, but the beginning of something. It is a new beginningas the title wisely highlights, because eternal life, that those who love already experience on earth within everyday occupations, is to start something that will not end. And it is precisely for this reason that it is a « new » beginning, because we will live something that we have never fully experienced: eternity.
With these pages in my hands I ideally would like to make the same gesture again that I had as soon as I worn the white dress from Pope, in the Sistine Chapel: embrace his brother Angelo with great esteem and affection, now, both older than that day in March 2013. But always united by gratitude to this love God who offers us life and hope at any age of our life.
