Learning to Love the Aging as God Loves

Janele Hoerner speaks about the importance of learning to love those around us as we give of our time positively for others’ benefit. 

We are surrounded by a changing world, a world that seems to be altered again and again — daily. It is no surprise that quality of life is misconstrued by how much money a person has, but the reality is, money speaks and, in a society, where life is not respected during any age, we must consider what the purpose is of living as long as we can, anyway.

The respect for life conversation seems to always be targeted around the life of the unborn and while this is a wonderful argument and one worth fighting for, there are many other sectors of the population that deserve to be fought for also. The elderly seem to be passed over as unworthy, and this is reiterated over and over again is many ways: namely by doctors, nursing homes, and younger family members.

The Role of the Doctor

Doctors and medicine have drastically transformed over the past 150 years into an empire of not quality care, but quantity care. The younger doctors seem, as a majority, to pass members of the older generations back and forth between different specialists to do nothing other than extend someone’s life as long as possible.

In one sense it is wonderful to think that a doctor wants to help an elderly person (specifically your parent or grandparent) to have a more fulfilling retirement, but is it done out of love? When a calendar is full of more doctor appointments and or surgeries in retirement rather than familial relationship “dates,” than we must ask ourselves to what end extending this person’s life is fulfilling the will of God. God wants us all to use this life as a means to get to Him and our heavenly home — not to simply extend our existence by sitting in multiple waiting rooms or doctors' offices waiting on a doctor to refer to yet another doctor.

What are we doing as we sit by and watch our parents and grandparents go through this cycle that seems to have trapped most of our population? Are we speaking up and telling our older family members that they are worth more than sitting in multiple waiting rooms per week? Are we having more conversations with our family members per week then they have doctor's appointments? Are we being an advocate for our aging family members and explaining to them how important they are to us?

The Nursing Home Dilemma

Part of the reason that nursing homes exist is that many people are living longer than they ever have and the aging person has bought into a lie that they are a burden to their families. I have heard so many times that a person just feels like a burden and they want their children to live their best life and not feel obligated to provide them care. Is this what life has crumbled to? Do our parents feel that we don’t want them around us? Do they feel that they don’t want us to serve them? Are our family members really choosing to go to nursing homes because they want to be there?

Our best life is using every opportunity to do what Jesus taught us — and that is to serve. By choosing to serve, we must abandon the mainstream practice of keeping our family members in nursing homes and having them transported by the homes to and from outings without our presence.

Even if our family members must be in a care home-type setting, we still should be actively visiting and giving our support and love by our presence. I have walked through far too many nursing homes where they are no one visiting and the only presence walking the halls are the nurses and aids that are employed by the care home facility. We must wake up to the reality of what is means to love as God would love.

Family Members

The purpose of our body is to grow as we learn to love, love as we serve at our prime, and then be loved and supported as we age by the lives that we served during the healthiest years of our body. In a world that values replacements for the love we have been taught through God and through our wonderful Catholic Church, we must be prepared to fight. We must make the calls and sit on the end of the phone listening and giving our attention to our family members. We must stop thinking that they do not want to hear from us and take our kids to play at their feet as we show them love. We must show love and ask God to stretch our capacities out of our comfort zone to give possibly more than we received from our family members when we were children ourselves. We must transform the world by our love, and how better to do that than have every age of our families living with us if we are able?

To the world, yes, it may be strange. It may be the opposite of what everyone is doing with their evenings and their meals, but if you extend yourself in love maybe you will be the beginning of love that brings your aging person closer to loving God. You can be the start of showing love to our aging members of society, which will give them a deeper appreciation for God as they prepare to meet Him.

Living life as long as we can will only give us satisfaction while we are on this earth and it is a relatively short life. Even if you are just watching the seconds tick by, the years looking back seem to pass incredibly fast. Everyone deserves love to the deepest capacity that one can imagine. Some people’s capacities are small, but only God truly knows the extent of one’s capacity. We should be spending our days pouring out as much good as we possibly can, and all that good can only start with love of another.

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Copyright 2026 Janele Hoerner
Images: Canva