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Old Soldiers Never Die
George VI was on the throne when Grandma died. Her pair of scissors, which she may have had for fifty years before that, are still in use and as sharp as ever. They are already in their third generation of users and I would confidently predict that they will see me out. Not so the pair that I bought within more recent memory; they snapped when I was trying to cut a bit of wood with them. Nothing lasts nowadays.
There is much wringing of hands within the church over the advanced age of our congregations. There are no young people present, or so they say, were there ever? Think back to the olden days, were not the majority of churchgoers always of a certain age? Except that, in our younger days, old people were really ancient, bent double and smelling of mothballs. Nowadays they are made of sterner stuff. Like Grandma’s scissors, they are made to last. In Germany they have formed a new political movement for bus pass holders, the Grey Panthers, I rather like the sound of that, it has a certain Teutonic ring and it reflects much of what many of us feel.
We are the old soldiers who refuse to fade away. In us lies the repository of the faith, a faith that grows stronger, like a good wine, the longer that it lasts. That is no cause for complacency, we need to nurture and encourage it in the next generation, but we should not shake our heads and consider that we are a bunch of dead-legged has-beens. The church, we are told, is in terminal decline. There is no hope for the future. Numbers are dropping dramatically, soon there will be nobody left. What rubbish! While the present resilient generation holds the fort there is always hope for the future. The young have not abandoned us for ever, they are just too busy, as they always were. Once they have more time to think about their faith they will come flocking back, if we set them the right example, and we do.
According to the Acts of the Apostles, after the Ascension of Our Lord, the eleven remaining disciples, and the women who followed Jesus, together with the Blessed Virgin, went back to Jerusalem - a smallish group. After Pentecost three thousand were added to their number. This is how it has continued and this is how it will continue.
May God bless you all, Fr Allan
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