As a mirror of an enough common situation in the women religious Families of Europe, my Congregation presented the average age of 72 years in the Chapter, which we celebrated two years ago.

Before this situation we are threatened by emerging problems requiring immediate solutions: assistential problems for the sick sisters, bewilderment for the scanty number of vocations, worry for the young sisters committed to apostolic activities, work for the consequent re-dimensioning of the works, accumulation of commitments on the persons exercising apostolic activities with consequent situations of stress.

A study made by A. Pardilla¹ shows that during the past 40 years the falling in number of religious in male institutes has been of 59,13%. Moreover, if we consider the state of vocations mainly in the old world, ²  we can say that religious life is in progressive fall, the average age being always higher and the perspectives not promising a different development. Yet, these are not the unique considerations to be made in this epochal change.

In the book of Genesis we read that God opened the eyes of Agar so that she might see the well from which she could fetch water for her son and herself, a well that was present but invisible (See: Genesis 21, 19). We, too, must allow the Lord to open our eyes with his light so that we may see the "wells", the occasions of life present in our Congregations.

John Paul II spoke of the old age as a time of wisdom and grace, "The aged, with their wisdom and experience as fruit of their life, enter a phase of extraordinary grace that opens for them inedited opportunities of prayer and union with God. They are granted new spiritual energies, which they are called to put at the service of others, turning their life into a fervent offering to the Lord".³  Perhaps, this is one interpretative key to welcome and to love our congregations.

For some religious Families, instead, old age appears as a sign of failure. The event of Lazarus, who comes out of the tomb, proves that the power of God is at work in a weak and vulnerable man, already handed over to death. Cannot this same power arise spiritually the entire body of a Congregation? Our life can express the power of the Kingdom also in an advanced age, in the state of weakness and small numbers. Rather, it can speak with more power just because of its fragility.

The advancing age worries us and provokes comments on the future. This is legitimate because the Congregations are often committed in frontiers requiring work for not light commitments. However, it could become misleading when the whole question is looked at only and mainly from this perspective. Our consecrated existence is a gift of the Father in its totality and concrete essence, independently from the apostolic efficiency. Baptism and religious profession locate the whole life under the particular sign of love. The Spirit shares the same fruitfulness to the youth energy, the adult maturity and the season of old age.⁴

Looking at our own old congregation, therefore, we recognise that the Lord blesses us just with longevity. Many of our sisters reach an age rich in years, unthinkable so far. Some, favoured by a particular physical and psychic energy, continue their full activity in all that obedience entrusts to them. Others live in serene activity with a more measured rhythm, after years of full commitment in apostolic tasks and community responsibilities. Others are confined in infirmaries, sometimes for long years of complete inactivity.

The growth and life in the Spirit, indeed, does not stop with years and sickness. The building of the interior man is not a question of age, but of a deeper adhesion to the work of the Holy Spirit in us (See: 2 Co. 4,16).

Therefore, when we are weaker we are called to be signs of life. The fact of having lost other types of power is influential, like the power of richness and the power bound to the leadership of important institutions. We have the power of giving life, if the Spirit can manifest the Kingdom through us.

Sickness itself can be lived as grace in the light of the Paschal mystery. Teolepto of Philadelphia in the Filocalia wrote, "Never neglect your prayer because of sickness until you breathe your last, not even one day, listening to Him who says, "It is when I am weak that I am strong’. By doing so you will receive more utility; this shortly will make you to go ahead with the synergy of grace. In fact, wherever the Spirit is invoked, there is neither sickness nor sloth".⁵

If the sickness present in a congregation is lived as a paschal mystery, it becomes consolation and richness, a pouring down of grace on the entire religious family. I have seen many sisters who before suffering and also before death have witnessed to the joy of God’s presence in their life and the awareness of living in the perspective of eternity. The frequent memory of death introduces a fruitful truth in the spiritual life, a truth that leads everything to the reality of Jesus Christ, since Christ is for us death and resurrection. Death is the end of our living down here, it is an encounter with the crucified and risen Lord, it is the entrance to the Trinitarian life.⁶

Thus, a congregation of aged sisters can become a new possibility of evangelisation and testimony! The aged sisters are signs of uninterrupted growth in God, a growth in which the Gospel values are strengthened. The meekness of the sister, her humility, her patience and faith are tested by trials. These trials are considered by the Scripture and the Fathers of the Church as gifts of God: they predispose to the esichia (quiet, interior peace), in which a more rigorous purification is acquired and, therefore, a more abundant illumination.

The congregation can affirm of living in its entirety the tension towards an uninterrupted growth as an answer to the call of the Lord. This movement implies attention towards the spiritual experience that goes on developing in us, for which we discover always deeper the work of God in our life. A thanksgiving flows spontaneously from our heart before it. Barsanufio the Great wrote to one of his disciples, "Be ready to thank God for everything, according to the words of the holy Apostle, ‘Render graces for everything’, in tribulations, in necessities, anguish, sickness and the fatigues of the body: thank God for whatever happens to you. In fact, I hope that you may enter His rest. It is necessary to go through many tribulations in order to enter the Kingdom of God. Thus, do not hesitate in your soul and do not be weak in your heart, but remember the words of the Apostle, "though our exterior man goes on decaying, the interior man gets renewed day after day’"..

Therefore, the old age can be identified as a favourable time in which we can slowly bring to surface the many truths that we have believed, listened to, proclaimed and eventually taught to others. The past, with its evils and sad memories, is erased from the horizon of the thought in prayer. The worries of the present and its demands exist no longer, and the anguish of the future with its unknown events disappears. Now the soul rests in God because it has put an unlimited trust in Him, similar to that of the child who rests on the breast of its mother. ⁷ In the old age we harvest the fruit of all that we have been learning and practising along our journey of faithfulness to our vocation.

It follows that for the Congregation the old age is a time of grace to be lived in the peace and joy of the Lord; it is a fruitful time for oneself and for others. The aged sisters are, for the congregation, the custodians of spiritual wisdom and the spiritual mothers; they are manifest signs that love will never end (See 1 Co. 13, 8), it remains for ever because it is the unique boundless and incorruptible reality. The whole art of this season of life consists, therefore, in knowing how to enwrap in love everything and one’s own existence.

Looking at things which will not die, the aged congregation will not be oriented and committed to the direct evangelising action, but rather to a diffusive illumination of what really matters. In fact, one who is ready to welcome death as "a close companion" of one’s own life does not become active, but luminous.

Rightly Romano Guardini would say, "As we gradually grow in age, the dymamis (namely our vital strength) decreases. However, when man achieves his interior victories, his person allows the sense of the achieved things to become transparent. He does not become active, but radiates. He does not face reality aggressively, does not keep it under control, does not dominate it, but manifests its sense and, with his disinterested attitude, gives a particular efficacy to it. ⁸

The aged sisters are our charismatic memory. We have received the charism from them; they have safeguarded and transmitted to us faithfully the values and structure of our Family, The memory of their experiences helps the whole congregation to avoid superficiality and improvisations without history; it gives a foundation to new projects and communities with prophetic perspectives.

PAOLA PAGANONI
Superiora generale delle Suore Orsoline di San Carlo
Via Lanzone, 53 - 20123 MILANO