The fourth World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly will be celebrated this year on Sunday, 28 July 2024. Pope Francis inaugurated this World Day to be celebrated by the universal Church each July, either on or near the liturgical Memorial of Saints Joachim and Anne, grandparents of Jesus, to help “treasure the spiritual and human wealth that has been handed down from generation to generation.”
In his Message for the fourth World Day for Grandparents and the Elderly, Pope Francis shares this year’s theme for the Day: “Do not cast me off in my old age” (Psalm 71:9). He invites the Catholic faithful to reflect on the loneliness of the elderly, encouraging us to “take a new path” and to spend time with them, “acknowledging their unique role in the family, in society and in the Church…”
Let us welcome this opportunity to ‘build something different’, reaching out to each other, both young and old, to strengthen our bonds of love and fraternity, so that no one may ever feel ‘cast off’, lonely, or discarded.
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