Monday of last week, August 4th., was the commemoration of the famous ‘Cure of Ars’, St. John Vianney, who died in 1859. And on that day one of his fellow-nationals died, who was born only 16 years after his death. This was the world’s oldest [provable] woman, Mme. Jeanne Calment of the Southern French town of Arles, who was born in 1875 and lived 122 years, 5 months and 2 weeks. Although in a home, she remained lucid in mind to the last. Until recently she enjoyed a good glass or three of red wine, and smoked cigars, and these two good gifts of God – along with best quality olive oil – were, she maintained, the causes of her long life.

She outlived her daughter by 64 years and her husband by 55 years. When she sold her property, she did so to a lawyer who agreed to pay her an annual sum for the rest of her life, a disastrous bargain, for the lawyer died three years ago having paid three times the total value of the house.

Among other inhabitants of Arles, she could clearly remember a certain Monsieur Vincent van Gogh who was a dab hand with the paint brushes but "stank", to say nothing of the trouble with one of his ears.

Mme. Calment was certainly not ‘fazed’ by the changing fashions of the world. At the age of 121, she made a CD reminiscing on her life to the background of rap music.

Of her failure to die earlier, she said: "God seems to have forgotten about me."

Well, perhaps not. Maybe God was using her to show to the world a very valuable gift – adaptability in old age. Few of us like change, and not all changes are good. Clearly, though, one of the messages of the Gospels is "Change!". That is what Jesus’ word "Repent" means – "turn your mind about". So if in the face of change any of us bury our heads in the sand, we are not really living out the Gospel. And old people who can change – bearing in mind the great weight of custom and history they carry – are a wonderful witness to the working Gospel. They are reflecting St. Theresa of Avila’s words "Nada te turbe, nada te espante" – "Let nothing trouble you, nothing frighten you."

It is often easy for the young to look on the aged as ‘old codgers’. Let us remember that inability to adapt is not confined to the old. Some of the most inflexible people I have ever met have been in their teens! Nazi revivalists in Germany have not, for the most part, been gnarled veterans of the 30’s Hitler Youth; they have been 20-year old skinheads whose message is "I know what I like, get off my back". So, salut! Mme. Calment, and ‘up the aged!’ DS