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30 CALLED FROM LIFE TO LIFE John 17:1-5 While modes of communication have changed, the Christmas message remains the same. Ann and I share with you recipients of our annual greeting the hear t-warming "good tidings of great joy." Christ the Savior is born; Jesus, the Light of the World is irradiating the darkness of our fallen planet. As the apostle John jubilantly tells us in the prologue to the four th Gospel, "The Light is shining in the darkness, and the darkness has not put it out." That's an authentic translation of verse 5, the soul-thrilling truth of the Savior's Advent. With the help of Rober t Morgan's ar ticle on "The Privilege of Aging," let me add a postscript. You know that last summer both Ann and I passed the 93rd milestone on our ear thly pilgrimage, I in July, she in August. Both of us have undergone some afflictions, she much more than I. That's the reason we no longer talk too enthusiastically about the sunset years. We refer to them with both gratitude and irony because our sky these days is sometimes rather darkly clouded. Yet we have been and are remarkably blessed. So we can appropriate for ourselves what in 1999 Pope John II wrote in a letter to his "elderly brothers and sisters." Referring to his own "twilight years," he said (as quoted by Morgan) that they are to be lived "with a sense of trusting abandonment into the hands of God, our provident and merciful Father. It is a time to be used creatively for deepening our spiritual life through more fervent prayer and commitment. Despite the limitation brought on by age," Pope John II wrote, "I continue to enjoy life. It is wonderful to be able to give oneself to the very end for the sake of the Kingdom of God. At the same time, I find great peace in thinking of when the Lord will call me from life to life!" That's also our attitude as believers in the gospel. We trust it is yours wherever you are on the path that will bring us as His disciples into the place Jesus has gone to prepare (John 14:2). -VCG, 2007 DECEMBER 23