Celebrating my 70th birthday with my fellow novice David Sanders, I said: “I suppose that this is my last decade” – and awaited a vigorous denial. Not a bit of it: “Given all of your illnesses, I expect it is.”

The role of old people in Luke’s gospel is to champion the young as they begin the adventure of their lives. St Joseph is trad­itionally seen as an old man whose selfless vocation is to raise the mysterious child of Mary, who must be about his “Father’s business” (2:49). Dumb Zechariah found his voice only when he accepted that the child of his old age would not be named after his ancestors: “His name is John” (1:63). He must let him find his own vocation. We old ­people find our voice if we let the young find theirs and support them as they embark on ways that we shall not fully understand. Young John was not born to take his father’s place in the Temple, and our young are not given to us to fulfil our agenda. My primary task at 80 is to support the young, like so many grandparents. One must quit the centre of the stage.

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