As he approaches the age of 75, a former master of the Dominican order finds himself pondering the eternal question – the same question God put to Elijah

I suppose that nearly everyone asks the question “What should I do next?” at some time in our lives; as one finishes one’s education, perhaps, or when struck by some sort of mid-life crisis, or as one nears the end.

My latest book, and probably my last, Alive in God: A Christian Imagination, was published last autumn. It includes most of what I have been wanting to say during the last few years. Of course, there is no reason to expect that God would want anything in particular from me now. Even in the gerontocracy of the Catholic Church, bishops offer their resignation at this age and hang up their mitres. But I had a feeling that there might be some new task to be done, or question to explore, or challenge to which I must respond. So I asked for six months’ sabbatical to ponder this. My idea was to listen to the Lord by studying the Scriptures, to have times of silence and see what, if anything, I might hear.

I began with a month in the Dominican Biblical School in Jerusalem, and flew back to England a couple of days before lockdown. Then the sabbatical was gobbled up in responding to a tsunami of emails and Zoomed meetings, preparing articles and homilies. As for so many people, social isolation did not turn out to mean endless free time. But in the rare moments of silence and tranquillity, the question continued to haunt me: what, if anything, comes next? What does the Lord want of me?