An age of life not given to everyone—marked by great contradictions that make it hard to understand. A long past behind me, where I can no longer intervene (what I have done is done). Ahead, an uncertain future, difficult even to measure: the twilight of my existence, during which I gradually return what had once made life rich.
Advanced age holds a great surprise: the soul does not decline with the body. I can still change. For my God, it is never too late. In what ways must I correct myself? My tendency toward pessimism. The troubling fear that God's mercy is a deception, my withdrawal into myself, my silence, that habit of neglecting my behavior, the appearance and dignity of my body. Why overcome all this? To cooperate with divine grace for my own benefit and that of my brothers and sisters, with a new heart and a new spirit.
Bissonnier does not stop at these reflections. He offers practical suggestions drawn from lived experience, from love, from faith: he invites us to answer letters, to return visits, to greet others always—perhaps adding a word or two beyond the greeting itself—to embrace new situations, to set our affairs in order while thinking ahead to what will happen after our death. And then to have the courage to make plans still, to learn a language, to take up a study—perhaps of Scripture, where God makes himself known and teaches us that love he expects from us personally, because he loves us personally, however hard that may be to grasp.
These are the changes that can make the elderly person a model of hope and a witness to God's permanence in the face of human life's fleeting nature, of our many failures, disappointments, sufferings. What does that same God expect of us in our old age, as he did in our younger years? First, gratitude. Then the offering of our poverty, which unites us to Christ. Then praise. Then our gaze fixed on life beyond this earth. There God waits for me—waiting with tenderness and love. Him I need not fear, for he is my greatest defender. Before him I need only make myself humble and small.
Old age: the age of waiting. Waiting by the Father, who has already prepared a new garment for me. Waiting by the Son, who has saved me from true death. Waiting by all my loved ones and all those the Lord has let me meet in my long life. And as I approach its end, I will not forget those I leave behind on earth. Like Thérèse of Lisieux, I want to spend my paradise doing good on earth. Profound reflections joined with practical guidance, shaped by experience illuminated by great faith and a passionate heart.
The book is physically compact—not many pages, with clear, readable print suited to readers in the third and fourth ages, for whom it is written and by whom it deserves to be known.
G.B., 2010