Category: Older People

Pilgrims of Hope: Journeying as Older People – event

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Growing Old Grace-fully is hosting a half day event offering a chance to reflect on our own journey into later life, as Pilgrims of Hope. This reflects the theme of the Catholic Church’s 2025 Jubilee Year, the theme of which is Pilgrims of Hope.

Our aim in gathering together in person is to continue to explore the reflections and conversations so beautifully expressed by Paula Shanks and Mgr Donal Lucey in the “Doorways of Hope” online series. Video recordings of the Doorways of Hope events can be viewed here.

The event will reflect on our own life’s journey, whatever age we are, and explore finding the God of where we are now in our own life.

It will also include suggestions for practical ways of finding and nurturing hope; for example, through meditations on gospel passages, poems and art and also through ways of practising gratitude.

The event will end with a shared lunch over which we can continue the conversations from the day.

If you would like to attend, please book a place on EventBrite here.

From the Jubilee Prayer

May the grace of the Jubilee reawaken in us, Pilgrims of Hope, a yearning for the treasures of heaven.

May that same grace spread the joy and peace of our Redeemer throughout the earth.

To you our God, eternally blessed, be glory and praise for ever.

Amen

Taken from The Jubilee Prayer, Pope Francis

World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly – Sunday 27th July 2025

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The World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly will be celebrated for the fifth time in 2025. The date this year is Sunday 27th July.

This special day takes place on the Sunday closest to the Feast of Saints Joachim and Anne, Grandparents of Jesus. This year their Feast is Saturday 26th July, making this a whole weekend double celebration of later life and older people!

Pope Francis established the Catholic Church’s World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly which took place for the first time on Sunday 25 July 2021.

The theme chosen by Pope Francis for this year’s celebration is:

“Blessed are those who have not lost hope” (cf. Sir 14:2)

Pope Leo’s message for the World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly 2025, reminds us that hope is a source of joy, no matter what age.

Here you can read the full message from the Holy Father.

Here are prayers and links from the Bishop’s Conference of England and Wales to help you celebrate the day.

If you are a grandparent and are able to attend Mass, you could invite your grandchildren to attend with you.

The Catholic Grandparents Association has been at the forefront in campaigning for a greater recognition of Grandparents for their role and vocation in passing on their faith to the next generation. They have also produced resources that you might wish to use.

Day for Life 2025

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This Sunday, 15th June, is the annual Day for Life of the Catholic Church.

Day for Life is the day in the Church’s year dedicated to raising awareness about the meaning and value of human life at every stage and in every condition.

The Church teaches that life is to be nurtured from conception to natural death. In England and Wales, Day for Life is celebrated on the third Sunday of June each year.

The theme is Hope does not Disappoint: Finding meaning in Suffering. It is inspired by Romans 5:5-6. St Paul invites us to see that Christian hope is not just naïve optimism but, rather, an unshakeable trust in the power and presence of God who is with us always. This hope can endure the darkness of human suffering and even see beyond it.

As an older people’s charity, for Growing Old Grace-fully, Day for Life is an opportunity to reflect on and celebrate the value of older people and of the gift (and especially this year, the challenges and sometimes the suffering) of later life.

You can download a Day for Life parish poster here.

There is a Bishops’ message and a downloadable prayer book here.

Day for Life Fund

We are very grateful as a charity to have received funding from the Day for Life fund which has been crucial in enabling is to do our work.

The Day for Life Fund provides financial assistance each year to organisations working to support the Church’s mission to protect human life from conception to natural death. Each year, the money donated by the faithful on the Day for Life is dispersed to these organisations to assist them in undertaking specific projects relating to life issues. These can range from educational workshops to advocacy campaigns, practical support services to commissioning research.

We encourage people to donate to the Day for Life fund to support its work. You can donate to it here.

Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents and the Elderly – prayer for older people

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This weekend is Jubilee of Families, Children, Grandparents and the Elderly, part of the ‘Pilgrims of Hope’ Jubilee Year 2025 in the Catholic Church. 

This is the weekend of the Jubilee Year to celebrate and pray for older people (including grandparents) as well as families and children.

This Jubilee event is a celebration of the family – including older people – and a time to prayer that so our world today can become a family-friendly world.

As part of this Pope Francis, the Pope who announced this Jubilee, spoke of older people as the “firm foundation” of the future and that we must be not afraid of becoming old and we should instead see the value in later life and greater age.

He said: “Because to say “old” does not mean “to be discarded”, as a degraded culture of waste sometimes leads us to think. Saying “old” instead means saying experience, wisdom, knowledge, discernment, thoughtfulness, listening, slowness…Values of which we are in great need!”You can download the service/prayer booklet for the Jubilee here

There is a link to resources and prayers about this Jubilee produced by the US Conference of Catholic Bishops here. 

Here is a suggested prayer for older people this weekend which you might to say.

Prayer for all older people for Jubilee Year 2025

Heavenly Father,
source of all life and wisdom,
we thank You for the gift of later life and older age
and for all older people, 
as the Pilgrims of Hope who have walked longest
on this beautiful planet you have given us.

Bless all older people all over this troubled world,
the long lives lived and the many lives touched
the families, friends, the memories
the faith handed down,
and we pray for the strength with which to bear life’s burdens and challenges.

May the long standing witness of older people remind us of this Jubilee Pilgrimage, 
and inspire other people’s own journeys of hope.
Grant all older people peace,
companionship and enduring hope. 

May all people, communities and societies cherish, respect and value older people and later life and may we all walk together – Pilgrims of Hope of all ages – toward the light of Your Kingdom, united in love, guided by hope.

Through Christ our Lord.
Amen.

Growing Old Grace-fully

30th May 2025