Grow old gracefully, says archbishop

London, England - The spiritual leader of the 70-million-strong Anglican church urged an end to what he called the Western resentment of the passage of time and used Christ's crucifixion as an example of how to let go, in his Easter message delivered here.

"Quite a lot of our contemporary culture is actually shot through with a resentment of limits and the passage of time, anger at what we can't do, fear or even disgust at growing old," said Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury.

"A healthy human environment is one in which we try to make sense of our limits, of the accidents that can always befall us and the passage of time which inexorably changes us," he added during a sermon delivered at Canterbury cathedral in southern England.

"An unhealthy environment is one in which we always look for someone to blame and someone to compensate us, and struggle to maintain fictions of our invulnerability to time and change."

"Easter proclaims to individuals and economic systems and governments alike that we shall not find life by refusing to let go of our precious, protected selves," he said.