_ Today I turn 50. A friend shrugged and said, “just another day, father.” Aside from the fact that I can now officially join St. Joseph’s Seniors Group, I suppose turning 50 is just another day, although I did enjoy being a forty-niner last year. My Mom said the 50s were her favorite decade. She’s about to enter her 80’s, so she’ll let me know in a few years if they beat the fifties.

   I don’t think I’ll make it to a hundred, especially the way this old world’s going, so I suppose I’m about two thirds the way “there.” Now where is there? “There” is Heaven, we hope. I’m two thirds the way to Heaven, with a stop in Purgatory, I imagine. The sooner I get to Purgatory, the sooner I can get to Heaven. Let’s just hope your dear old pastor doesn’t get to Hell, and none of us for that matter. For that, we must depend entirely on the grace of God.

_But to return to my subject (it’s my birthday, and it’s my fiftieth birthday, so I get to ramble a bit in this laptop). My Subject: Growing Old. We all complain about getting older, but really, it’s not bad at all. Remember how we used to complain about being too young? Every age has its joys and sorrows, but I think getting older is a beautiful gift from God. Because the older we get, the younger we get. The older we get, the closer we get to rebirth, to real living.

   In 1997 I took a group to World Youth Day in Paris. We took the train to Lisieux to see St. Therese. In her basilica, at the altar depicting her death, was written in French, “I’m not dying. I’m entering into life.” I smelled beautiful roses at that altar, and was filled with a certain conviction that death, and growing older, is a gift. That day, death lost its sting for me. St. Therese obtained this grace for me. Growing older is simply letting God have more of my life, day by day. Life doesn’t slip away as we grow older — we give it to God. Death will be like resting secure under the skillful hands of a perfect surgeon. I’m glad to be fifty, 50 years closer to that day.