tvc.dsj.org | September 10, 2019
COMMENTARY
15
A Lesson in Aging
By Rev. Ron Rolheiser, OMI
Theologian, teacher, award-winning
author, and President of the Oblate
School of Theology in San Antonio, TX
We live in a culture that idealizes youth and mar-
ginalizes the old. And, as James Hillman says, the old
don’t let go easily either of the throne or the drive that
took them there. I know; I’m aging.
For most of my life, I’ve been able to think of myself
as young. Because I was born late in the year, October,
I was always younger than most of my classmates,
graduated from high school at age seventeen, entered
the seminary at that tender age, was ordained to the
priesthood at age twenty-five, did an advanced degree
within the next year, and was teaching graduate theol-
ogy at age twenty-six, the youngest member on the
faculty. I was proud of that, achieving those things
so early. And so I always thought of myself as young,
even as the years piled up and my body began to
betray my conception of myself as young.
Moreover, for most of those years, I tried to stay
young, too, in soul, staying on top of what was shap-
ing youth culture, its movies, its popular songs, its
lingo. During my years in seminary and for a good
number of years after ordination, I was involved in
youth ministry, helping give youth retreats in vari-
ous high schools and colleges. At that time, I could
name all the popular songs, movies, and trends, speak
youth’s language, and I prided myself in being young.
But nature offers no exemptions. Nobody stays
young forever. Moreover, aging doesn’t normally an-
nounce its arrival. You’re mostly blind to it until one
day you see yourself in a mirror, see a recent photo
of yourself, or get a diagnosis from your doctor and
suddenly you’re hit on the head with the unwelcome
realization that you’re no longer a young person.
That usually comes as a surprise. Aging generally
makes itself known in ways that have you denying
it, fighting it, and accepting it only piecemeal, and
with some bitterness.
“Aging is a gift, even if unwanted.
Aging takes us to a deeper place,
whether we want to go or not.”
But that day comes round for everyone when you’re
surprised, stunned, that what you are seeing in the
mirror is so different from how you have been imag-
ining yourself and you ask yourself: “Is this really
me? Am I this old person? Is this what I look like? ”
Moreover you begin to notice that young people are
forming their circles away from you, that they’re more
interested in their own kind, which doesn’t include
you, and you look silly and out of place when you try
to dress, act, and speak like they do. There comes a
day when you have accept that you’re no longer young
in in the world’s eyes – nor in your own.
Moreover gravity doesn’t just affect your body,
pulling things downward, so, too, for the soul. It’s
pulled downward along with the body, though ag-
ing means something very different here. The soul
doesn’t age, it matures. You can stay young in soul
long after the body betrays you. Indeed, we’re meant
to be always young in spirit.
Souls carry life differently than do bodies because
Robert Bellarmine
1542-1621
September 17
Crosiers
One of five sons in a prominent Tuscan family and the nephew of
a pope, Robert was well-educated even before he became a Jesuit.
After his ordination at Louvain, he taught there for seven years,
specializing in “controversial theology.” He returned to Rome in
1576, taught at the Gregorianum, and wrote a three-volume work
defending Catholicism against heresies of the day. He also advised
several popes, served as Jesuit provincial and cardinal-archbishop
of Capua, mediated the Galileo controversy, and in old age turned
his author’s pen to devotional writing. In 1931, Pope Pius XI
proclaimed this patron of catechists a doctor of the church.
Saints
bodies are built to eventually die. Inside of every
living body, the life-principle has an exit strategy.
It has no such strategy inside a soul, only a strategy
to deepen, grow richer, and more textured. Aging
forces us, mostly against our will, to listen to our
soul more deeply and more honestly so as to draw
from its deeper wells and begin to make peace with
its complexity, its shadow, and its deepest proclivi-
ties - and the aging of the body plays the key role in
this. To employ a metaphor from James Hillman: The
best wines have to be aged in cracked old barrels. So too
for the soul: The aging process is designed by God
and nature to force the soul, whether it wants to or
not, to delve ever deeper into the mystery of life, of
community, of God, and of itself. Our souls don’t age,
like a wine, they mature, and so we can always be
young in spirit. Our zest, our fire, our eagerness, our
wit, our brightness, and our humor, are not meant to
dim with age. Indeed, they’re meant to be the very
color of a mature soul.
So, in the end, aging is a gift, even if unwanted.
Aging takes us to a deeper place, whether we want
to go or not.
Like most everyone else, I still haven’t made my
full peace with this and would still like to think of
myself as young. However I was particularly happy to
celebrate my 70 th birthday two years ago, not because
I was happy to be that age, but because, after two
serious bouts with cancer in recent years, I was very
happy just to be alive and wise enough now to be a
little grateful for what aging and a cancer diagnosis
has taught me.
There are certain secrets hidden from health,
writes John Updike. True. And aging uncovers a lot of
them because, as Swedish proverb puts it, “afternoon
knows what the morning never suspected.”