Each year British retailer John Lewis creates a seasonal buzz with its creative, emotionally charged Christmas advertisements. This year the department store chain has teamed with Age UK, Great Britain’s largest charity for senior citizens, to raise funds and awareness of the scourge of loneliness among the elderly today. The heart-wrenching commercial depicts a young girl reaching out to an elderly “Man on the Moon” and ends with a simple yet haunting slogan: “No one should have no one at Christmas.”
What does a British ad campaign have to do with us? When I saw the ad it struck me how much it is in synch with Pope Francis’ repeated appeals on behalf of the eldest members of our society. “It’s brutal to see how the elderly are thrown away,” he proclaimed earlier this year; “it is a brutal thing, it is a sin!” Pope Francis recounted a visit he paid to a retirement home one August. He met a woman who told him about her large family, and when he asked her about the last time her children had come to visit she replied, “for Christmas.” “Eight months without being visited by her children — abandoned for eight months!” he exclaimed. “This is called mortal sin!” Read More>>
No one should have no one at Christmas