Thursday, February 9, 2017

Amoris Laetitia - par. 193



193.  The lack of historical memory is a serious shortcoming in our society.  A mentality that can only say, "Then was then, now is now", is ultimately immature.  Knowing and judging past events is the only way to build a meaningful future.  Memory is necessary for growth:  "Recall the former days" (Heb 10:32).  Listening to the elderly tell their stories is good for children and young people;  it makes them feel connected to the living history of their families, their neighborhoods and their country.  A family that fails to respect and cherish its grandparents, who are its living memory, is already in decline, whereas a family that remembers has a future.  "A society that has no room for the elderly or discards them because they create problems, has a deadly virus",218 "it is torn from its roots".219  Our contemporary experience of being orphans as a result of cultural discontinuity, uprootedness and the collapse of the certainties that shape our lives, challenges us to make our families places where children can sink roots in the rich soil of a collective history.

218 Ibid.
219 Address at the Meeting with the Eldelry (28 September 2014): L'Osservatore Romano, 29-30 September 2014,p.7.


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