Saturday of the Twenty-fifth Week in Ordinary Time

Today's Mass Readings

How common it is for us to idolize youth! Think of the extent to which many of us go to hide indicators of aging – we color our hair, we wear contact lenses, we use anti-aging cream on our skin. Think of the ways that we try to make youth last longer and longer – we delay marriage and having children, we create and use drugs like Viagra.

We assume that the best times are youthful ones and often call the college years “the best four years of life.” Models and athletes, a mostly under 35 group, occupy many magazine covers, posters, and television commercials. There are far more television shows about high school, college age, and 30-40 somethings, than there are shows like “The Golden Girls.”

There is something important about this attention to the young – they represent a vibrancy, an untapped energy, a seemingly inexhaustible exuberance. Indeed, Christ came that we may have life and have it abundantly, and we see in the young such abundant life overflowing. All of this is good. Nevertheless, when we begin to see and suggest that life is really a slow motion fall off of the high horse of youth, we have missed something.

Reacting to that, some would say, “life begins as fifty,” indicating that there is a previously non-existent freedom to “live” at this age. Yet, this response cuts off the legitimacy of life as lived beforehand. It lends itself to a mentality that all of life is working toward retirement, if I could just get to retirement, I can really live!

For the Christian, the answer is not “life begins at fifty,” but rather in the words of today’s psalm, “Then the virgins shall make merry and dance, and young men and old as well” (Jer 31:13). We know from God’s past actions that God doesn’t depart after youth, nor does God wait until fifty to show up. And this is important because God is the very source of our joy!

In today’s gospel reading, the disciples are afraid of any talk of life moving forward, especially in this case of Jesus talking about His death. They don’t understand and they don’t want to understand: “they were afraid to ask him about this saying” (Lk 9:45). They seem to be wedded to this particular state in life. If they were to ask, Jesus would perhaps tell them that he will send his Holy Spirit and so in that sense he will be with them forever. But they can only think in narrow human terms – that he will only be with them for as long as he walks the earth.

While there are many gifts to be thankful for in youth, there are also many gifts to be thankful for as we grow older, because God, the giver of all gifts, is a God of the young and the old. As this God does indeed continually dwell among us (Zec 2:14).