Fr Brian D'Arcy: Sunday was my 80th birthday - In my head, I'm still 30

Sunday World

16 hours ago

LONG LIFE |
However, my body tells me I'll not play for Fermanagh in Croke Park today - or any other day – but I'll never throw in the towel.
Psalm 90 puts it in perspective, 'All our days pass away; we finish our years with a moan. Our days may amount to three score and ten (that is, 70) or 80 for those who are strong.'. That's God warning me, I am now in the departure lounge.
Reality began for me when the face in the mirror was not mine but my father's—the dreaded warning signs of old age are as plain as the wrinkles on my brow. With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.
I refuse to throw in the towel. There is no need to be old until you have to be.
Fr Brian D'Arcy. Photo: Mark Condren
News in 90 Seconds - 6th June 2025
The poet/priest Ed Hays rightly points out: 'We begin ageing at birth, so aren't there some preventive measures we can take to ensure a pleasurable old age?'
Old people were respected in the past because they were few and far between. Now we live longer, and the number of old people is rapidly increasing. The much-maligned taxpayer is squeezed between an ever-increasing elderly population and an ever-more-expensive teenage population.
For a long time, I thought I was one of those sandwiched between old age and youth. In the past year, I've stopped thinking of myself as middle-aged. I am old. Realising it and accepting it are not the same thing, though.
Because I live in a Religious Community, I've become used to living with old people. They taught me that I should treat the old people I meet with the respect and the esteem I'd wish to be given when I am old.
In old age, dignity is taken away by constant, intrusive examinations by doctors and medical procedures. 'Bodily strength and agility are removed, then teeth, eyesight, and hearing.
Dreadful memory loss can occur at any time during the ageing process. It's as if we gradually lose everything and are stripped to the bone,' Ed Hays reminds me.
Hays offers this advice as part of a spirituality of growing old. Accept the stripping away of many things we found necessary for our independence, as making room for inner peace. Pierre Teilhard de Chardin says the loss of bodily and mental abilities in old age is caused by the creator carving out large cavities in us to fill them up with God. Read more
Hays adds that there are no pills to help us overcome the most dreaded diseases of old age – 'prickling impatience, touchy irritability, moody grumpiness, pessimistic cynicism, criticism of youth, and sickly nostalgia for the good old days. Never indulge in any of them.'
Don't be worried about the inability to recite lengthy prayers. When pain and suffering become our constant companions, the ability to pray deserts us. Forget reciting prayers and instead become a living prayer by unconditionally embracing your sufferings.
It's not easy being old these days. They say old people don't contribute to society and drain much-needed resources. In African culture, old age was treasured, and villagers respected the elderly as the most knowledgeable and the wisest. Since they discovered Google, who needs wise old people?
One day, I asked a priest, who was over 90, how he kept himself so fit and active. Quick as a flash, he shot back: 'I always go to bed the same day I get up.' I haven't done that in fifty years.
I cannot deny now that the sand in the hourglass speedily drains out, and the golden years pass quickly. My days are filled with goodbyes. The late Paddy Cole often joked: 'Brian, if we don't die soon, there'll be nobody left to come to our funerals.' I don't laugh as loudly now. As I age, I treasure the gifts of health, family, friends, and memories with sublime gratitude.
To sum up, on my 80th birthday, I can genuinely say that growing old is no fun, but it is still better than the alternative. Age is inevitable; growing old is a choice. Opportunities don't happen; you have to create them. It's never too late to be what you might have become.