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The Grace in Aging: Awaken as You Grow Older by Kathleen Dowling Singh is a book whose title I came across in an article by a Sister of St. Joseph writing on spirituality and aging in a National Religious Retirement Office  (NRRO) newsletter. Sister Liz Sweeney, SSJ, a Sister of St. Joseph of Chesnut Hill, Pennsylvania, wrote an article, "Contemplation's Impact on Aging: Rooted in Mystery and Poured Out in Contemplation" in the Spring 2017 issue of Engaging Aging, an NRRO newsletter. 
Sister Sweeney said over the past five years she had studied two books by Kathleen Singh: The Grace in Dying and The Grace in Aging. Due to their scope and depth, the books qualified for her as wisdom literature. She writes that Singh emphasizes that "while the dying process is naturally transformative, the transformation offered in the self-surrender of aging must be freely chosen and embraced, moment by moment."
In the Forward of The Grace in Aging, Singh writes the following:

"Lightening our attachment to self is the only thing that is going to get us through the decline, illness, and loss that we will, almost, inevitably, face from now until we die with some equanimity and peaceful sanity, rather than with weeping and the gnashing of teeth. Using these years of our life as a time to awaken can help us cope and even grow in love and wisdom as we confront decline, illness, and loss."



Sister Sweeney points out that commitment to a daily contemplative prayer practice that Singh advocates as essential for this awakening is a challenge, even for consecrated Religious.  She says it is important to acknowledge the challenge of faithfulness to contemplation, to a simple prayer of presence, for many of us. "Distractions or anxieties can take over, making it hard to stay present," she says. 
The transformative effect of contemplation on us, writes Sister Sweeney, is two-pronged: "to the same extent that aging leads our prayer to become more contemplative, contemplation spills over into our lives as compassion, mercy and forgiveness."

Of the two books by Singh, I have finished reading The Grace in Aging, and found it a little easier reading than The Grace of Dying, which I am still reading. In the back of The Grace of Aging there are two resources - a spiritual inventory and a questionnaire on aging. The questions in them both would be good for personal reflection and sharing in a small group. 







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