ADDRESS OF HIS HOLINESS POPE FRANCIS
TO THE "RAINBOW CHOIR" OF THE
HOME FOR THE ELDERLY WITH ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE IN BONHEIDEN (BELGIUM)

Room adjacent to the Paul VI Audience Hall
Wednesday, 4 April 2019

Thank you, thank you, brothers and sisters, many thanks. My secretary here tells me: “it is the most beautiful thing I have seen with the Pope”.

When I saw that your home which welcomes people suffering from Alzheimer’s, has a choir called “Rainbow”, I thanked the Lord. Because I believe that for you, singing together is a comfort, a support that helps you go forward and bear the stress of the illness which is certainly onerous. Indeed, I think that your singing is made more precious by your vulnerability. I believe that sharing your frailties and reciprocally accepting them, is the most beautiful “hymn”, the harmony that is most pleasing to the Lord, a “rainbow” of perfection rather than of imperfections!

Then when I saw the conductor, I thought: he forgot his baton! But then I saw that his baton is tenderness. Thank you, “Maestro”, because by carrying out these gestures of tenderness, you make us all more human. And with your care, your tenderness, everyone’s tenderness, today we have fulfilled the fourth Commandment: honour the elderly who are our memory. Perhaps some of them have lost their memory, but they are the symbol of the memory of a people. They are the roots of your nation, of our humanity. They are the roots and the young people must come there to gather the sap of the roots to carry civilization forward.

Thank you, thank you deeply. And now I will give you my blessing and later I will greet you all. I ask you to pray for me. Le Seigneur vous bénisse tous, le Père, le Fils, et le Saint Esprit.