SW News: The third World Day of Grandparents and the Elderly will be observed on July 23. This year's theme is "His mercy extends from generation to generation."

On this day, Pope Francis will lead a mass in St. Peter's Basilica in the Vatican at 10 am local time. This Eucharistic service will include more than 6,000 attendees, many of whom will be elderly Italians attending with their families.

According to the Dicastery for the Laity, Family, and Life, five senior people representing the five continents will symbolically hand over the World Youth Day Pilgrim Cross to five other young people as they depart for Lisbon after Holy Mass. This action symbolizes the promise made by the elderly and grandparents to the Holy Father to pray for the young people attending the 2023 World Youth Day in Lisbon.

Pope Francis declared on January 31, 2021, the institution of the World Day of Grandparents and Older Persons. It is celebrated throughout the Church on the fourth Sunday of July commemorating St Joachim and St Anne, the grandparents of Jesus.

The Holy Father’s aim was to promote the encounter between generations, of grandchildren with grandparents and grandparents with grandchildren to guard and transmit the roots. The Holy Father has granted a plenary indulgence, which purifies the soul of the person and returns him to the state in which he was when he received Baptism. In case if the person dies after obtaining it, he would go directly to Heaven. Hence its spiritual value for all the faithful.

One must satisfy certain conditions to get plenary indulgences such as sacramental confession, Eucharistic Communion, and prayer. This plenary indulgence may also be applied to the suffrage of the souls in Purgatory like for a deceased person. The indulgence may also be obtained by the sick elderly who unite themselves spiritually to the sacred functions of World Day, offering to the merciful God their prayers and pains.