Portugal – When Elderly Salesians experience Friendship and Company

12 August 2016

(ANS – Mogofores) – “I wish I were present on the day of my funeral, to see whether there are the persons I love most. Oblivion, what makes me tremble is oblivion”, recites a song composed by a Salesian past pupil. According to experts, one of the greatest problems of elderly people is solitude and oblivion. As R. Cruzado wrote: “pain, forgetfulness, are reflected in their faces furrowed by the passing of time, by fatigue, by weariness and the blows of life they keep on avoiding”. Elderly Salesians in Portugal live in a house where every month some Salesian Cooperators go and visit them. Is not this a way of living the Year of Mercy?

“A people that does not respect its grandparents loses its memory and therefore loses its future”, Pope Francis often said to remind that elderly people are a very important part of society and must not be removed from daily life. Mindful of this, on the last Sunday of the month, the Salesian Cooperators of Mogofores, Mortágua, Agueda and Anadia, with their families, friends and supporters of, celebrate the day of the of the Lord praying and visiting elderly Salesians.

After the Eucharist and after sharing lunch together, they visit those they define “our sick or needy Salesians”. A Salesian Cooperator involved in this initiative says: “They know that our presence is fraternal and that we go there to visit them. Some of them remember our names, our way of being, but, above all, they feel that we have not forgotten them. We see them smile, they are happy. We spend some time with them. The time for visits is not much, because their state of health does not allow longer visits, but these moments are very meaningful”.

In this way, the lady concludes, the day of the Lord becomes “a family journey, with a twofold target: visiting our Salesian brothers, in the context of the Year of Mercy, and a cultural moment, full of joy and sharing in the family”.

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ANS - “Agenzia iNfo Salesiana” is a on-line almost daily publication, the communication agency of the Salesian Congregation enrolled in the Press Register of the Tibunal of Rome as n 153/2007.

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