Last Sunday was the 3rd World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly. Pope Francis began that celebration three years ago, to be celebrated on the 3rd Sunday of July,  linking it to today’s Feast of Sts. Joachim and Ann, July 26. 

This year he linked the celebration with the upcoming World Youth Day, August 1-6 in Lisbon, Portugal. 

Speaking at the Angelus on Sunday, Pope Francis appeared at the window of the Apostolic Palace together with a young man and his grandmother, and invited the crowd in St. Peter’s Square to give them a round of applause.

“May the proximity of the two World Days offer us an invitation to promote a much-needed covenant between generations, because the future is built together, as we share experiences and as young people and the elderly care for each other,” he said.

Don’t forget the contributions of grandfathers and grandmothers, Francis said. Earlier in his homily at Mass for the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, the pope called on politicians everywhere to implement policies that protect the rights and health of the elderly. 

Crowded cities, he said, risk becoming “centers of loneliness” if societies forget their elders or “banish them as unprofitable waste”. 

“May we not chase after the utopias of efficiency and performance at full-speed,” said the Pope, “and become incapable of slowing down to accompany those who struggle to keep up. Please, let us mingle and grow together.”

The pope uses popular religion, the liturgy and the daily scriptural readings in a masterful way to give meaning to life. He knows the words to say, the gestures to use, the simple beautiful human acts that touch minds and hearts.

Yesterday, I was on the phone with a cousin of mine who was taking care of her little grandson, Patrick. She told me she was helping to potty-train him and teaching him to say his prayers. She even had Patrick say some of the Our Father for me. Appropriately, her name is Nancy, a nickname for Ann. 

Years ago, in the ancient cathedral in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, I saw a large statue of St. Ann teaching her child Mary from a book. (Above) Usually statues like this show Ann teaching Mary how to read the Bible, but this was something different. Ann was pointing out 1,2,3,4 and A,B,C D– the numerals and the letters of the alphabet. 

Saints like Ann and Joachim, grandmothers and grandfathers, have the power to throw light in the simplest of ways on our lives and our times. Holiness is as simple as teaching a child A,B,C’s and all the rest. Don’t forget them.