Turning 80 a few days before Ash Wednesday was a big deal. There were birthday cards and cakes for over a week. My brother and my two sisters threw a marvelous dinner party. They were very kind, and months later, I’m still on a high from the experience.
The fact of the matter is that party, like a Sonic-Bomb alarm clock, jolted me out of an aging lethargy. Happening near Ash Wednesday as it did, it reminded me that there are many more Lents behind me [79] than in front of me. That party served as a wake-up call for how to use Lent of 2025 to prepare for the end-song of Easter, awakening an agenda for the finishing touches on the person I’m called to be. How to age gracefully? How not to be a grumpy old man? How to serve? How to be kind? How to do what I can do and avoid what I can’t?
Two old codgers wrote about what Jesus would do if he would have turned 70? “When you get to be old farts as we are, you recognize that Jesus never made it to his 70s or 80s. [What would Jesus do as an old man?] We’re trying to figure that out.” (“What Would Jesus Do in Old Age” by Reardon & Reardon, NCR, 2022)
The Gospels relate how Jesus spent 40 days (sounds like Lent?) fasting in the desert. They record how, with a fiery, forceful spirit in his 30s, he turned over tables in the Temple, climbed mountains to pray, walked 85 miles from Capernaum to Jerusalem more than once, mingled with crowds carrying palms, endured torture, carried a cross through the streets, and was executed at Calvary.
So, in the 21st century, how does an 80-year-old person follow such a zealous, compassionate, and young Jesus? That question feels like a more important one than the imaginative question about what Jesus might do as an old man. When the “fire in the belly” just flickers and the pill bottles dominate the medicine cabinet, how does an old person embrace Lent in order to revitalize the mission of making God known, loved, and served?
Joan Chittister provides a guide in her book “The Gift Of Years.” She said it this way. “We need to think again about the beauties of age … learning to give new challenges a chance that make the later years a spiritual adventure … seeing a beckoning God everywhere ….”
The beauties of age. With words like that, seeing old age as beautiful can turn those new challenges of sleep apnea, arthritic fingers, poor recall on names, or the chilling diagnosis of a serious illness into personal moments of spiritual awakening. Lent is that springtime that invites those of us in the autumn of life to discover how God moves us toward new Easter life, even when we experience loss.
These are some of the personal realities through and in which God beckons us toward Divine happiness and love as elders. There are also social realities in which God beckons us to grandparent a hurting world.
The need to usher along Gospel values of justice for the poor, compassion for the vulnerable, and respect for the marginalized opens even old eyes to see God beckoning all around us. Lent provides the time for the spiritual adventure of responding with renewed energy.
This Lent, this 80-year-old received an invitation to go on a two-week Lenten mission to an orphanage in Honduras with college students on spring break. The Finca del Nino rescues orphans and vulnerable children from abusive situations. God beckoning? Spiritual adventure?
All sorts of normal questions suggested – stay home. “Is being 80 too old for something like this? What if I get there and find that I am a burden to others with my hard of hearing ears, my failing eyes, my ventricular tachycardia, my rusty Spanish, and enough pills to look like a pusher?”
The cardiologist smiled when asked for a consultation. “Go for it, Father.” And then, laughing, “Just be prepared to return in a box!” We both laughed, and I bought the ticket.
Talk about a great way for an older person to do Lent. From the eclipse of the blood moon in March that filled the Honduran sky with stars too numerous to count, to the 3-year-old orphan grabbing my finger, leading an old priest to a tree loaded with mangos he couldn’t reach, God was everywhere. From the return of an old lady to Mass and Communion after having walked away 30 years ago to the amazing experience of living among college-age men and women with awesome faith, the Lenten mission was a Divine embrace. A taste of the new life of Easter!
Let me conclude by saying that the diminishments that are a part of aging can become barriers to life and love – if we let them. They can also be the hand of God gesturing us to come closer and, in doing so, enter into a continuing spiritual adventure. Bringing the context of our lives to the season of Lent – what a marvelous way to enter into the joy of Easter and the promise of life forever in love.
Fr. Thomas K. Zurcher, C.S.C.
Author: Rev. Thomas K. Zurcher, C.S.C.
Published April 2025
