Denver Catholic

23 DENVER CATHOLIC | APRIL 23-MAY 13, 2016 On "aging gracefully" I t seems odd, even a bit repul- sive, when we encounter tales of elderly men running after women who are young enough to be their granddaughters. The wheel- chair-bound billionaire oil tycoon J. Howard Marshall was 89 years old when he married the 26 year old Anna Nicole Smith. He had met the Playboy model and reality TV star in a strip club. Anna insisted that she really did love the old man, and wasn't in it for the money. With age should come wisdom. It's appropriate and fi tting for older men to leave behind their former ways, and no longer live and act like college frat boys. It's right to expect growth in self-control as we mature, and to expect a more refl ective and sober approach to life. Growing old invariably ož ers us the opportunity to redirect our focus, and as our body weakens, our mind and soul can be drawn to consider matters we may have previously avoided, like death and that which awaits us beyond death's threshold. Our later years can powerfully provoke us to come to terms with our destiny and with higher truths. In a recent column, Father Ron Rolheiser, quoting James Hillman, speaks to the graces that aging and infi rmity can bring our way: "Why have God and nature so structured things that as we age and mature and are fi nally more in con- trol of our lives, our bodies begin to fall apart, and we need a bevy of doc- tors and medicines to keep function- ing? Is there some wisdom in the very DNA of the life process that mandates the breakdown of physical health in late life? Hillman says yes. There's an innate wisdom in the process of aging and dying: the best wines have to be aged in cracked old barrels. The break- down of our bodies deepens, softens, and matures the soul." I once overheard a hospital nurse chatting with one of her patients and was caught a bit ož guard when she nonchalantly declared, with a little twinkle in her eye, "...when we get to be over 40, who doesn't have hemorrhoids?" The comment, I thought, refl ected a healthy, positive attitude toward aging and infi rmity. Unavoidably, our bodies decline. Our strength wanes. We get hemorrhoids and warts and cancers and high blood pressure and male pattern balding. In the midst of it all, we can accept our lot with grace and gratitude. A serene acceptance of our struggles, and even of the specifi c death that awaits us, is surely a great virtue. But aging gracefully is not some- thing many of us tend to do well. We resist the idea. We may cling to the fantasy of eternal youth. Some in our society even push the notion that we shouldn't have to put up with the challenges of infi rmity, and instead ought to receive help from the medical system so we can beat a hasty retreat to the exit. By pushing for physician-assisted suicide, they encourage us to despise the good of our own lives and to reject the graces that arise from our struggles by choosing to ingest any of a number of doctor-prescribed poisons. On the other hand, by embracing our particular path into death, and by ož ering up our trials, we acquire a poise of soul and human maturity that orients us towards our destiny, a destiny in the hereafter that so many seem largely oblivious to. By letting our infi rmities existentially speak to us, and coming to realize how true it is that we have no permanent dwell- ing here, we begin to grapple with that mysterious truth that heaven and home are synonymous. Aging gracefully also involves recognizing and accepting the short- ening of the time ahead of us and the lengthening of the time behind us. Even as we achieve a much-sought independence in our lives, we begin to cycle back towards a renewed depen- dence on others, on caregivers, family and the community, and we may even come to the realization that our own mind will have to be surrendered if dementia comes our way. All of this can instruct us, if we accept it with grace, in the wisdom of relinquish- ing our own willfulness once again like little children, and returning to a humble framework of interde- pendence in our shared destiny with others and with God. Making Sense of Bioethics Father Tadeusz Pacholczyk, Ph.D., serves as director of education at the National Catholic Bioethics Center in Philadelphia, www.ncbcenter.org. FATHER TADEUSZ PACHOLCZYK, PH.D. subject of inaccurate gossip. But it makes me nervous when I think of the various lies I know I am capable of telling myself — lies that the import- ant things don't really matter, lies that I am spiritually better than I am, that I don't need to root out those things in my life that keep me from God. I have no idea what it's going to be like to see all of this truth spread out before me. Frankly, it makes me a little nervous. Fortunately, somehow in all of this, I will see the mercy of the God who loves me, the Father who knows my weakness and knows how I tried to cooperate with his grace. I will see where he was with me, where he moved in my life, how he held me up, how he forgave my many confessed sins and failings. I don't know exactly how that mercy works. Some say it means that, regardless of how we lived our lives, the merciful God will overlook it all and escort us into our Heavenly reward. I don't think it's quite that simple. They say, "How could a God who loves us send anybody to Hell?" But here's the thing: I don't think God sends anybody anywhere. I think it's the truth that determines our eternal destination. God doesn't judge us. He doesn't weigh in with his divine opinion. The truth just is. I believe that once we see the truth of our lives played out before us — the ways we have chosen God or not, the ways we have cooperated with His grace or not — the answer will be evident. I have even heard it said that the condemned choose Hell themselves — that for those who have refused to submit to God in this life, the ultimate submis- sion of Heaven is intolerable. They choose his absence, which is Hell. I also believe that part of the mercy of God may be to allow us the fi nal purifi cation of Purgatory before we enter the Heaven that contains nothing unclean. If that is the case, I agree with C.S. Lewis that "pains he may still have to encounter, but they embrace those pains. They would not barter them for any earthly pleasure." If the truth is that purifi cation will bring us into the presence of God, then we will desire that purifi cation more than anything else we could imagine. I believe that God loves us — all of us. I believe that I will see that love, in all of its beautiful, blazing glory, at the moment of my death. And I see how poorly I have responded to it. I also believe that his greatest desire is that we all choose him and follow him. I believe that he is a merciful God who understands our weakness and our brokenness. I don't know exactly what his mercy looks like, but I know it is available to us in abundance for the asking. And so, in this life, I am asking. I am praying for his guidance and abundance helpings of his mercy, which I surely need. And I am praying for the grace and wisdom to live in the truth, and to root out any lies, rationalizations or illusions from my life. Because when I join my cousin on the other side, when I see God — the Way, the Truth and the Life — face to face for the fi rst time, I want that "truth" part to be as beautiful as possible. STOCK PHOTO

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