When the signs of age begin to mark my body 

    and still more when they touch my mind;

when the illness that is to diminish me or carry me off

    strikes from without or is born within me;

when the painful moment comes 

    in which I suddenly awaken to the fact that

    I am ill or growing old;

in all these dark moments, O God, 

    grant that I may understand that it is you, 

        provided only my faith is strong enough,

    who are painfully parting the fibers of my being

    in order to penetrate to the very marrow of my substance

        and bear me away within yourself.

 

Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, 1881 – 1955, French philosopher and Jesuit priest

 

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Listen to me, O house of Jacob,
    all the remnant of the house of Israel,
who have been borne by me from before your birth,
    carried from the womb;
even to your old age I am he,
    and to gray hairs I will carry you.
I have made, and I will bear;
    I will carry and will save.