James Martin, S.J., shares the lessons he learned as a young Jesuit about accompaniment.

“Does the transmission of faith—and of the meaning of life—follow this path today, of listening to the elderly?” Pope Francis asked in his general audience.

“In every age you make yourself known to us, calling us to conversion. At this dark hour, help us and grant us your comfort.”

The elderly “will be the ones to sound the alarm, the alert: ‘Be aware, this is corruption, it will bring you nothing,’” Pope Francis said during his general audience on March 16.

“Lord Jesus, born under the bombs of Kyiv, have mercy on us. Lord Jesus, dead in the arms of a mother in Kharkiv, have mercy on us.”

“The rhythms of old age are an indispensable resource for grasping the meaning of life marked by time,” Pope Francis said in his general audience, and so spending time with our elders is not just a “waste of time.”