With a call for young people to get to know an old person and vice versa, Pope Francis has issued a Message for the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly which will be marked later this month on 23 July.

The Pope, who is himself 86,  instituted the Day in 2021, to be held on the fourth Sunday in July, close to the feast of Jesus' grandparents, Saints Joachim and Anne.

This year the Holy Father is frank in his appeal for the elderly: "Let us honour them, neither depriving ourselves of their company nor depriving them of ours.  May we never allow the elderly to be cast aside!"

Pope Francis chose as this year's theme “His mercy is from age to age” which recalls the Visitation – the joyful meeting between the young Mary and her elderly relative Elizabeth.

That same Spirit, says Pope Francis, "blesses and accompanies every fruitful encounter between different generations: between grandparents and grandchildren, between young and old."

The Pope expressed the delight that young people can offer older generations: “God wants young people to bring joy to the hearts of the elderly, as Mary did to Elizabeth, and gain wisdom from their experiences. Yet, above all, the Lord wants us not to abandon the elderly...”

The Pope lamented how often old people are pushed aside.

This year, the World Day, the Pope recalled, takes place close to World Youth Day, stressing how maintaining quality connections with the older generations has priceless value for the young.

Friendship with an older person, he said, can help the young "to see life not only in terms of the present and realize that not everything depends on them and their abilities."  For the elderly, on the other hand, he noted, the presence of a young person in their lives "can give them hope that their experience will not be lost and that their dreams can find fulfilment." 

"From the elderly we received the gift of belonging to God’s holy people.  The Church, as well as society, needs them, for they entrust to the present the past that is needed to build the future.

The World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, the Holy Father said, is meant "to be a small but precious sign of hope for them and for the whole Church."