At this general audience, in 1994, His Holiness recognizes that the contemporary age is almost automatically developing a new mission of the elderly in the Church: in fact, relying increasingly on health conditions once unthinkable, they can make themselves useful in the parishes and in other works of charity. Yet, not only that, because even when the forces decline it’s always possible to devote oneself to God in prayer and to accept, with love for the Lord, any hardships that may arise.