Respect all Life

One day on my way to the cemetery to pray for the poor souls, my youngest son asked me to stop in front of the local nursing home. He said "Let's pray for the imprisoned."  Pope Francis  recently stated the importance of taking care of the growing number of elderly people across the globe. Sometimes there is no choice but to place a loved one in a nursing home. But once they are there, do you set aside a day every week to go visit them? Do you care for the life that is fading away and they gave you life?

Pope Francis said old age is a "time of grace." The elderly hand down wisdom and their faith to others. This is vital to the working of our society. We must protect our parents and grandparents. Often nursing home are places to discard unwanted and unloved people. Many people even in luxurious environments are very lonely.

Mother of Teresa would send some of her workers to just "listen" to the elderly. They visit homes and sit down with the person just to let them talk. " To listen to someone who has no one to listen to him is a very beautiful thing" she said. Mother Teresa said as far as she was concerned, the greatest suffering is to have no one and feel unwanted and unloved.

Pope Francis said " We discard children, young people and older people under the pretense of maintaining a balanced economic system." Pope Francis also said "one of the most beautiful things in the life of a family, of our lives, is to caress a child and to let them be caressed by a grandfather or grandmother."

Respect for life begins at conception and ends with natural death.