David

On a warm spring night in April 1968, in the Zeitoun district of Cairo, Egypt, two workers saw a woman on the top of Saint Mary’s Coptic Church. The workers, thinking that she was about to jump from the roof, called the police who claimed the two men were witnessing a reflection from the street lamps.

When I was 19 weeks pregnant, my husband Christian and I went to our ultrasound appointment excited for a gender reveal! Everyone in our family thought we were having a boy, and we wanted a boy too, a baby brother for our older daughter, Lara, who was almost four.

A morning radio presenter recently lamented the lack of good news. She sombrely described the current spate of news stories as a precursor to the “end times.”

On Monday we celebrate the feast of Saint Alphonsus Liguori, founder of the Redemptorists. A gifted writer, he penned the following prayer during his extraordinary life.

Dear Friends,
“In old age they will still bear fruit” (Ps 92:15). These words of the Psalmist are glad tidings, a true “gospel” that we can proclaim to all on this second World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly. They run counter to what the world thinks about this stage of life, but also to the attitude of grim resignation shown by some of us elderly people, who harbour few expectations for the future.