The Good News of Aging

Day lily in Motherhouse gardens.

As the youngest child in my family, I have experienced the loss of my parents and both of my siblings. They died in their 50s, 60s, and early 70s. Earlier this month I had a birthday that made me the same age as my sister was when she died. She lived longer than anyone else in my immediate family, although my paternal grandmother lived to be 99.

Aging is not something valued in our youth-oriented Western popular culture. According to Oblate Father Ronald Rolheiser, even the Church could improve in the area of aging, saying, “We lack a developed spirituality for the second half of life. Our churches and theological circles have too little to offer in terms of spiritual guidance for us as we move beyond our youthful years, especially as this pertains to aging and moving towards death.”

Lily of the Nile in Motherhouse gardens.

Rolheiser says “The invitation in aging is an invitation into living a new life - surrendering, letting go, forgiving, receiving, loving fully.” These quotes were cited by Maggie Meigs, Ph.D., a clinical psychologist and director of the Forest Dwelling Program: Spirituality for our Wisdom Years at the Oblate School of Theology in San Antonio, Texas. She spoke recently on an NRRO (National Religious Retirement Office) Avila Institute webinar, “Hallowing our Diminishments: The Good News of Aging.”

She further cited Fr. Rolheiser’s three phases of the spiritual journey:

• Essential discipleship: “the struggle to get our lives together”

• Generative discipleship: “the struggle to give our lives away”

• Radical discipleship: “the struggle to give our deaths away.”

  As I celebrate another year of life as a Sister of St. Joseph, whose mission is to live and work to bring all people into union with God and one another, may all my diminishments become a pleasing gift to God, my Beloved.

Hydrangea about to burst into full bloom in Motherhouse gardens.