Tag: Later Life

Prayers for Easter

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Easter, the glorious celebration of the resurrection of Jesus our Lord and God, is a feast and season rooted in renewal, light and hope.

Easter invites us, especially in later life and old age, to reflect not only on Christ’s rising but also on the quiet transformations throughout our own lives. The moments of joy and sorrow, success and failure, achievement and loss that have shaped us through a lifetime of walking, sometimes steadily, sometimes falteringly, toward the light. The eternal hope of Easter is God’s enduring promise that new life can and will emerge, for all who seek it, whatever age and stage of life.

Growing Old Grace-fully, Easter 2026

Our journey towards the empty tomb

Loving God,
in this Easter season of new life and quiet hope,
we come before You with hearts shaped by many years.

We thank You for the journey behind us—
for the joys that have lifted us,
the sorrows that have deepened us,
and the faith that has carried us through every season.

As we grow older, Lord,
teach us to see Your resurrection not only in grand moments,
but in gentle mornings, steady breaths,
and the kindness we both give and receive.

When our bodies tire and our steps slow,
renew our spirits with Your living presence.
When memories crowd our minds—both sweet and painful—
hold us in Your peace and remind us we are never alone.

Help us to trust that even now,
You are still bringing new life within us—
new patience, new understanding, new grace.
May we face each day with quiet courage,
resting in the promise that Your love does not fade with time.

And as Easter proclaims life beyond death,
fill us with calm assurance and hope,
that our journey leads ever closer to You.

Amen.

Growing Old Grace-fully

You Are the Resurrection

How wonderful, Lord Jesus, you came back
You suffered death but conquered it
You laid in the tomb but on the third day
You rose again
O joyful day, Lord Jesus, when you returned
You are the resurrection, our hope and our life
O glorious and victorious Redeemer
Help us not to be afraid of death
For we must pass through it to see you face to face
And on the last day we will rise again
For you said so
Let us rejoice and praise you
Our Blessed and triumphant Lord
On this happy, joyful feast.

Amen.

Diana Ng/CAFOD

O Risen Christ

O Risen Christ,

You breathe your Holy Spirit on us

and you tell us: ‘Peace be yours’.

Opening ourselves to your peace –

letting it penetrate the harsh and rocky ground of our hearts –

means preparing ourselves to be

bearers of reconciliation

wherever you may place us.

But you know that at times

we are at a loss.

So come and lead us

to wait in silence,

to let a ray of hope shine forth

In our world.

Amen.

Brother Roger, Taizé prayer

Prayers for Holy Week

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Holy Week, the holiest week of the year, invites us all to reflect on the ultimate sacrifice made for all of us. As we journey through these days – recalling Jesus Christ’s fear, suffering, anguish and death and then the glory of Easter – we are gently reminded that every stage of life carries its own meaning and grace.

In later life, the challenges of ageing – whether physical ailments, aches and pains, loneliness, loss or the weight of memories – can trouble us and lead us to doubt, anxiety and sadness. Yet Holy Week speaks directly into these experiences. It reminds us that suffering is not without purpose, that quiet endurance has dignity, and that even in moments of loss, there is the promise of new life.

We have compiled some prayers for Holy Week below, prayers to help us reflect through this week.

Through reflection and prayer, may this Holy Week become a time of peace, connection, and renewed hope.

Growing Old Grace-fully, Holy Week 2026

A Holy Week prayer for older people

God our Father,

As we walk through Holy Week,
we remember Jesus on the road to Calvary—
weighed down, yet faithful,
wounded, yet still moving forward.

So too in our own lives,
as the years gather and our strength changes,
we carry burdens we did not once know—
aches in body, losses in heart,
and the quiet letting go of what was.

Teach us, like Christ,
to walk this path with courage and trust,
to accept each step with grace,
and to know we are never alone.

And as Easter dawned with light and new life,
remind us that growing older is not only loss,
but also transformation—
a journey toward deeper peace,
renewed hope,
and the promise of resurrection within us.

Amen.

Growing Old Grace-fully

Prayer for Holy Week

Lord Jesus,

This Holy Week we follow you on your sorrowful and glorious journey,
your journey to the Cross and Resurrection.

Today we ask that we may walk with you,
give us grace to see the deep love you show us.

As you were welcomed with joy and acclaim to the Holy City,
your betrayal by the crowds soon overwhelmed their cries of Hosanna.

On the Cross, you made yourself servant taking the sins of the world upon yourself.

May our lives reflect your desire to serve God our Father first;
that we may serve you in our brothers and sisters.

When we face suffering and disappointment, may we know your love.

When we are feeling lost, may we know that you are with us.

When we are worried, may your Cross be a sign of hope and strength.

May this Holy Week be for us a time of renewal in faith and love.

Through Christ Our Lord.

Amen.

Fr Christopher Warren from St Mary’s Church, Hexham for Churches Together, Hexham

Prayer for Holy Week

Jesus my Lord, let me strengthen my courage by taking on the courage of all those people who have been “centurions” for me.

Many have faced disasters and hard times with great constancy. The upper hand of evil never turned them against you. They kept going.

Let me be like them, Lord. No matter what the cross, let me never stop declaring you to be “truly the Son of God, the source of my hope, the reason why I will never quit on life.

Amen

Catholic Online

Carers Project launched

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Growing Old Grace-fully is delighted to announce the launch of a new Carers Project, which will be a key focus of our work.

The main aim of the project is to recognise and value the role of unpaid carers and offer emotional and spiritual support to them within the Catholic Diocese of Leeds.

Unpaid carers can often face isolation at a time when they may have difficult decisions to make and a range of emotions that caring for a loved one can bring.

The project aims to help reduce the isolation, giving carers the opportunity to engage with other Christian carers and support each other through their faith.

So many people, including many older people, have caring responsibilities of some sort, for spouses, friends and adult children with special needs. Caring is something hugely important to society and a real vocation, whether chosen or not. 

The project will be coordinated and led by Michelle Anderson and we are delighted Michelle is joining the Growing Old Grace-fully team.

Michelle Anderson, Carers Project Coordinator

Michelle introduces herself as follows:

“I live within the Diocese of Leeds and am a parishioner of the Parish of St Mary and St Patrick in Batley and Birstall. I am the Parish Administrator and also a Foundation Governor of St Mary’s Catholic Primary Academy. I take an active part in parish life and enjoy meeting new people. Since leaving education I have been involved in support and care in a variety of roles.

“Working with older people, and advocating for vulnerable people and those in need of support, has always been something that has been close to my heart. Making a difference and helping to make improvements in people’s lives, no matter how small, is something I have always been passionate about”.

Would you like to be involved in the project?

There will be a number of ways to be involved in the project. These will include:

  • Regular online meetings where carers will have the opportunity to chat and share with each other, including space and time to pray.
  • Days of reflection for carers
  • Online talks where carers will be able to share their reflections and look at how faith helps.

If you would like to get involved with the project or you feel the project could be of benefit to you or someone you know please get in touch, either through your parish priest or by visiting our website growingoldgracefully.org.uk.

You can also email carersproject@growingoldgracefully.org.uk and contact Michelle directly.

“God is our refuge and our strength, an ever-present help in distress.” Psalm 46:2

Prayers for Lent 2026

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Lent comes to us each year as a sacred invitation

Forty days to return to the Lord with all our heart. It is a season marked by prayer, fasting, and almsgiving, but also by honesty — honesty about our frailty, our need for mercy, and our hope in the promise of resurrection. In later life, this invitation carries a particular depth. As the years gather behind us and the horizon ahead feels nearer, Lent can become not only a time of repentance, but a season of profound wisdom, surrender, and trust.

Ageing brings its own kind of desert experience. There may be physical weakness, loss of independence, bereavement, or the quiet ache of loneliness. We may carry regrets alongside cherished memories. Yet the desert is not empty — it is the place where God speaks tenderly to the heart. In later life, prayer often becomes simpler and deeper: fewer words, more silence; fewer plans, more presence. Lent reminds us that growing older is not a diminishment of vocation, but a refining of it. We are called to witness through patience, to intercede through faithful prayer, and to hope steadfastly in Christ’s victory over suffering and death.

At the same time, we live in a world marked by uncertainty and turmoil. War, displacement, economic hardship, environmental crisis, and social division weigh heavily upon our spirits. Many older people look upon today’s world with concern for children and grandchildren, wondering what future awaits them. Lent does not ignore these realities. Instead, it draws them into the heart of Christ, who carries the suffering of the world upon the Cross. Our prayers in this season unite our personal vulnerabilities with the wounds of humanity. In doing so, they become powerful acts of love and solidarity.

These Lenten prayers are offered especially for those in the later seasons of life. They acknowledge the challenges of ageing while affirming the enduring dignity and spiritual fruitfulness of every year lived in Christ. They hold before God the anxieties of our time and ask for peace, justice, and renewal. Above all, they trust that even as our outer selves grow frail, our inner selves are being renewed day by day.

May this holy season be for you a time of gentle grace — a journey through the desert that leads not to desolation, but to Easter joy.

Growing Old Grace-fully

The Grace of Forty Days

The grace of forty days
Time to make the desert journey
and renew our way to life.

Time for testing and for changing.
Time to trust the word of God.

Time to recognise holy presence
and share Cyrene’s work.

Time for forgiveness and for healing
and to repent our broken lives.

Time to build God’s dwelling with us
and proclaim full life for all.

Time to watch and wait with Jesus
and to prepare the upper room.

Time to turn our lives again to God
and to transform our world with love.

Amen

Pat Pierce/CAFOD

Forgive Us

For closing ourselves to the driving of your Holy Spirit;
for choosing to live in places of comfort rather than being led into the wilderness;
for letting fear of the person who is different rule our lives, rather than letting your love for all people fill our hearts;
for our separation from one another in the Body of Christ;
for not trusting that you hold the future in your hands.

Amen

Elizabeth Welch

In the Thicket

God’s Truth as God knows it
as it can be held in the human tongue as it can survive translation from one tongue to another
as it can survive interpretation by scholars
as it can survive the teachers of teachers
as it can survive the experience and understanding,
and Language of every human
as it is -visible to those who see – still in the made
World beautiful
as it partly may be restored by good sense, loving kindness and Good will,
by inspiration by beautiful work

Amen

Wendell Berry

A prayer for times of anxiety

Dear Lord,

In moments of anxiety grant me peace.
Calm my restless heart and fill my mind with your reassuring presence.
In You may I find refuge and comfort in Jesus name.

Amen

Pastoral Worker for Older People – first report

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Dr Frances Norton, Pastoral Worker for Older People at Mary Mother of God Parish in Bradford has done her first report, which gives an excellent account of the amazing work she has been doing.  

The Pastoral Worker for Older People is a project proposed and commissioned by Growing Old Grace-fully and funded by The Ladies of the Grail. 

Dr Frances Norton, Pastoral Worker for Older People, Mary Mother of God Parish, Bradford

Frances describes how she has been a regular visitor to older people of Mary Mother of God parish in Bradford, to offer older people spiritual opportunities, giving space to develop a fuller faith and prayer life.

She has organised trips: To Our Lady of the Crag, Knaresborough, Our Lady of Doncaster (at St Peter-in-Chains), Our Lady of Manchester (at St. Mary’s, ‘the Hidden Gem’) and also organised also one-off events funded through local council bids, such as the icon painting and brambling for the Feast of the Assumption; and afternoon tea and memory box crafts.

This is a great start to this very positive and special project. We thank The Ladies of the Grail for the funding, Monsignor Paul Grogan and the parish for taking on and overseeing the project and role – and of course to Frances for delivering the work!  

To read Frances report, click on the button below.

Pastoral Worker report

A busy and productive year – Annual Review 2025

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To access the Annual Review, click on the above or on the button below.
Annual Review 2025

The Growing Old Grace-fully Annual Review 2025 gives an account of our activities in 2025.

Carol Burns, Growing Old Grace-fully Chair of Trustees gives an overview in her Chair’s Report.

There is also a first report from the Dr. Frances Norton, Pastoral Worker for Older People at Mary Mother of God Parish, Bradford, which is very exciting – and gives a good sense of the amazing work she is doing there in this role. This is a project proposed and commissioned by Growing Old Grace-fully and funded by The Ladies of the Grail. Frances has also done the first of her own reports here, which is well worth a read and shows the difference she and this project is making in the parish and area.

On page 2, there are details of Growing Old Grace-fully’s two main overall activities – dementia awareness and training (online and in-parish); and our programme of spiritual events, online and in-person, which in 2025 were centred around the theme of being Pilgrims of Hope, as part of the 2025 Jubilee Year of the Catholic Church.

As ever, we thank our funders who enable our work to happen – and who support and engage with us.

2026 Calendar – key dates

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Growing Old Grace-fully produces a handy calendar of key dates in 2026 related to older people and later life. This can help parishes and other communities plan specific events around Feasts in the Church calendar or national events related to later life and older people.

Our mission is to enhance the spiritual, emotional and physical wellbeing of older people across the Catholic Diocese of Leeds through raising awareness, inspiring and supporting responsive action in parishes. Part of this is to encourage parishes to have events and specific services for older people. Events and services celebrating later life and the contribution older people make to parish, community and society. Plus events and services related to the challenges of later life – such as healing Masses, services to remember loved ones and to deal with grief, bereavement, dementia and loneliness.

In the Calendar you will find relevant Catholic Feast Days and other Church occassions, most notably World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly in July, as well as national and international events and weeks related to older people and later life.

Do consider marking some of these in your parish – as well as using them as an opportunity for reflection and prayer.

You can download the calendar here by clicking on the button below:

Calendar 2026

Freelance opportunity – carers project

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Growing Old Grace-fully is looking for an energetic self-starter to work on a freelance basis assisting  the development of a new project supporting spiritual and emotional needs of unpaid Carers in the Catholic Diocese of Leeds.

The appointee will build upon the work of the Growing Old Gracefully project which has been celebrating older people for over 15 years.

The project involves providing online support to reduce isolation and work in parishes.

The successful appointee will be an excellent organiser with outstanding communication skills, a good understanding of the needs of older people and sympathy with the ethos of the Catholic Church as well as commitment to ecumenical partnerships.

The project has funding for a part-time role, working 12 hours per week (or monthly equivalent) at £20 per hour plus travel expense.

We have funding initially for a one-year contract.

The closing date is January 16th 2026

Interviews will be held on Thursday January 28th 2026

To send for an application pack please e mail carol.burns@yahoo.co.uk

Advent Prayers 2025 – in the Jubilee Year of Hope

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As we enter this holy season of Advent, we reflect as people who have travelled many years and gathered much wisdom along the way. This Advent is in the Catholic Church’s Jubilee Year, with us invited as Pilgrims of Hope to remain anchored in the hope of Jesus Christ and to do so especially in this season of hopeful waiting.  

Later life brings its own blessings—time for reflection, deeper gratitude, and often a clearer sense of what truly matters—but it can also bring worries. Many of us look at the troubling state of our world, the divisions between people, and the growing cost-of-living pressures and often feel a heaviness that is hard to shake. Questions about the future surface more easily now – our own and the future of our loved ones and our world –  and our prayers may reflect these fears and troubles as we turn anxiously to God for help.

Yet Advent invites us to lift our eyes. It reminds us that God draws near not in times of ease, but precisely in times of uncertainty. Into a troubled world, into an occupied land, into a humble stable, Jesus Christ was born. His coming—then and now—brings light that no darkness can overcome.

As we journey through these precious weeks, towards the end of the Jubilee Year of Hope,  may we find comfort in the promise of Emmanuel, “God with us.” May the hope of Christ’s birth renew our courage, steady our hearts, and assure us that even in later life—and perhaps especially then—God is still at work, guiding us toward peace, joy, and a love that endures.

God of Hope

God of hope,
we cling to you,
for you renew the face of the earth.

Through the gift of your Son,
our Lord Jesus,
we follow you on the path of dawn.

Enlightened by your love and wisdom,
help us to lead each other
and all creatures
back to your open arms.
Amen.

Rachel McCarthy/CAFOD

Advent Prayer by Henri Nouwen

Lord Jesus, Master of both the light and the darkness,
send your Holy Spirit upon our preparations for Christmas.
We who have so much to do seek quiet spaces to hear your voice each day.We who are anxious over many things look forward to your coming among us.
We who are blessed in so many ways long for the complete joy of your kingdom.
We whose hearts are heavy seek the joy of your presence.
We are your people,
walking in darkness,
yet seeking the light.
To you we say, “Come Lord Jesus!”

Amen

The Jubilee Prayer

Father in heaven,
may the faith you have given us
in your son, Jesus Christ, our brother,
and the flame of charity enkindled
in our hearts by the Holy Spirit,
reawaken in us the blessed hope
for the coming of your Kingdom.

May your grace transform us
into tireless cultivators of the seeds of the Gospel.
May those seeds transform from within both humanity and the whole cosmos
in the sure expectation
of a new heaven and a new earth,
when, with the powers of Evil vanquished,
your glory will shine eternally.

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

Trip to the Hidden Gem in Manchester

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There is a day trip to visit the Hidden Gem Shrine of Our Lady of Manchester on Saturday 13th December, organised by Mary Mother of God Parish in Bradford, but with the invitation extended to Growing Old Grace-fully supporters and subscribers (subject to availability).

The trip is being organised by Frances Norton, the Pastoral Worker for Older People, the post proposed by Growing Old Grace-fully and funded from a grant from the Ladies of the Grail.

A minibus will do two pick-ups, first at St John the Evangelist, Buttershaw at 9:15am and then St Winefride’s, Wibsey at 9:30am. The minibus will get to Manchester around 11am in time to join saying the Rosary at 11:30am and then Mass in the Hidden Gem at 12pm (noon).

There will be some free time for people to use as they please, including the option to visit Manchester’s Christmas market. Then there will be evening prayer at the Hidden Gem at 3:30pm, following which the minibus will return to Bradford.

Anyone interested in attending should email Frances at pwop.marymotherofgod@dioceseofleeds.org.uk or call the parish on 01274 677992. See the poster and parish website/bulletin for more details.