Words on the Word
Erik Varden is a monk and bishop, born in Norway in 1974. In 2002, after ten years at the University of Cambridge, he joined Mount Saint Bernard Abbey in Charnwood Forest. Pope Francis named him bishop of Trondheim in 2019.
Please find below a selection of homilies:
Time Standing Still ‘God is sweating blood. The world’s salvation is played out. And you, whoever you are, go about whistling? The contrast is immense, but recognizable. We have all experienced something of the kind: when someone we love has died, when we Read More
Beyond Opaque ‘I have to believe that people simply are capable of whatever profound question or intuition or whatever it is that we live with, with the idea of God. And I think we do everything to distract ourselves from it. I Read More
Simple Words We’ve such a need for simple words like
‘bread’, ‘love’, ‘kindness’
to keep the blind from losing their way
in the dark.
We’ve such a need for silence – silence! –
in order, through the air and in our thoughts,
to hear the voice,
the murmured, modest Read More
‘bread’, ‘love’, ‘kindness’
to keep the blind from losing their way
in the dark.
We’ve such a need for silence – silence! –
in order, through the air and in our thoughts,
to hear the voice,
the murmured, modest Read More
Prayer and Sleep ‘Rejoice always’, says St Paul, who adds: ‘Pray continually’ (1 These 5.16f.). The Fathers took this counsel seriously. They insisted it also applies when we are asleep. How can we pray when we sleep? The question has always interested me. Read More
Caritas
Hilsen ved åpningen av Caritas Tromsøs nye lokaler i bispegården den 12. februar 2026.
“Caritas”, står det på nettsiden til Caritas Internationalis, “er Kirken i aksjon”. Uttrykket er godt. Enhver kristen kalt til aksjon. Kristendommen lar seg ikke privatisere som fromhetsprosjekt eller ideologi. Når Kristus trer frem i sitt offentlige virke, er det for å si: “Følg meg!” Deri ligger to samsvarende oppfordringer: for det første, oppfordringen til å “vandre slik som Kristus vandret”, barmhjertig hjelpende, omsorgsfullt oppmerksomt; for det andre, oppfordringen til å bli del av et fellesskap.
Klyngen med individer som trasket i Jesu fotspor ble til det farverike, komplekse, rause fellesskap vi kjenner som Kirken.
Caritas, slik organisasjonen består i dag, ble grunnlagt på 50-tallet. To verdenskriger hadde vist folk i nord og syd, øst og vest hvor destruktivt mennesket kan være. Man hadde sett hvor fullstendig en samfunnsordning kan klappe sammen. Italieneren Primo Levi, en jødisk kjemiker som ble deportert til Auschwitz i 1944, satt i samme tidsrom og skrev på en bok som utkom med tittelen, Hvis dette er et menneske i 1958. Boken var tenkt som “Dokumentasjon for en stille studie av menneskets sinn”. Den er en analytisk utlegning av konsentrasjonsleirenes helvete. I innledning leser vi:
Mangt et folk, mang en nasjon kan mer eller mindre bevisst anta at “enhver fremmed er en fiende”. Stort sett ligger denne overbevisningen langt nede i dypet, som en latent infeksjon; den viser seg kun i tilfeldige, usammenhengende handlinger, og ligger ikke til grunn for noe resonert system. Men når dette skjer, når det uuttalte dogma blir hovedpremiss i en syllogisme, da oppstår konsentrasjonsleiren ved tankerekkens slutt. […] Det er en normal tingenes tilstand at de privilegerte undertrykker de underprivilegerte; leirens sosiale struktur bygger på dette faktum. […] Det onde budskap om hva menneskers hovmod har gjort med mennesket!
Når vi ser på verden vi lever i nå, når vi hører politiske budskap som rautes hist og pist, er det bemerkelsesverdig at prinsippet, “Enhver fremmed er en fiende” på nytt har fått ben å gå på. Infeksjonen sprer seg. Mange nekter å la seg vaksinere.
Så trenger vi Caritas. Caritas står for det motsatte prinsipp. Caritas er slik velsignet revolusjonær. Caritas virker utifra vissheten om at enhver fremmed kan bli en venn. Vi minnes også om at “den fremmede” ikke alltid er en annen. “Den fremmede” kan være jeg selv. Den fremmede forplikter meg, hvis jeg ønsker å kalle meg en kristen.
Vårherre sier i evangeliet, kort tid før han går til sin lidelse: “For jeg var sulten, men dere gav meg ikke mat; jeg var tørst, men dere gav meg ikke drikke; jeg var fremmed, men dere tok ikke imot meg; jeg var uten klær, men dere kledde meg ikke; jeg var syk og i fengsel, men dere så ikke til meg” (Mt 25.42-4). Det kan vi ikke leve med.
Den hellige Benedikt, klosterlivets far i Vesten, som la grunnlag for en sivilisasjonsfornyelse på 500-tallet, da restene av Romerriket falt, foreskriver at enhver gjest som kommer til klosteret, samme hva slags bakgrunn han kommer fra, hvor fattig og forvirret han så måtte være, skal mottas som om han var Kristus selv, med aller største ærbødighet.
Slik vil, skal, Caritas virke. Slik er Caritas “Kirken i aksjon”.
Caritas er fundert på evangeliet. Caritas er i tillegg selvbevisst og takknemlig katolsk. Hva skal dét bety i omstendighetene? Ordet “katolsk” er gresk. Vi kan oversette det med “altomfattende”. Å være katolsk er å ha et vidt perspektiv som omfatter jorden og skuer lukt inn i himmelen. Men “det katolske” er også forankret lokalt — i en kirke, en menighet; i valfartssteder, pilegrimsmål og i hellige ting, tegn på den Guds evige nåde som går gjennom tiden og etterlater spor.
Å leve og virke katolsk, slik Caritas skal, er å bestå i spenning. Det katolske fellesskap er rotfestet i et jordsmonn. Det vil, etter den hellige Elisabeths eksempel, glede og trøste mennesker her og nå, på stedet. Kristen nestekjærlighet må vise seg konkret. Å bare gå og prate om den er trøttsomt. På samme tid vet det katolske fellesskap at det er del av noe større. Det finnes ingen norsk, eller for den saks skyld nordnorsk, katolisisme. Det gir ingen mening å snakke om “den norske katolske kirke”. Lokalkirken representerer Den katolske Kirke i Norge, i Tromsø, i Vår Frues Menighet, men den er del av en prinsipielt grensesprengende kommunion som er, på forunderlig vis, forskjelligartet og tross alt nøyaktig den samme om man møter den på Borneo eller på Svalbard.
Stemmer i samtiden mener vi må velge mellom det lokale eller det universelle. De hevder at vi enten må vi slette alle grenser eller brenne alle broer. Vi bes om å følge én tendens. Det minste nikk i annen retning, oppfattes som svik.
Det finnes ingen fremtid i slik samfunnsforståelse. Det har vist seg før. Det vil vise seg igjen.
Den særkatolske utfordring i vårt klima går på å forklare, og vise, at man godt kan si med Ole Brumm, “Ja takk, begge deler”. Det går an å være helt og fullt Tromsøværing, Macklojalist og TIL-supporter, mens man innser at man ikke er seg selv nok og gjestfritt åpner døren, både husets og hjertets dør, for dem og dét som bærer på en større sammenheng. Den sammenhengen kan vise seg meningsbærende. Den kan bli til velsignelse.
En slik åpen dør skal Caritas Tromsø være. Jeg gratulerer alle som har jobbet hardt for denne store dagen. Jeg ønsker dere et glederikt, fruktbart virke!
“Caritas”, står det på nettsiden til Caritas Internationalis, “er Kirken i aksjon”. Uttrykket er godt. Enhver kristen kalt til aksjon. Kristendommen lar seg ikke privatisere som fromhetsprosjekt eller ideologi. Når Kristus trer frem i sitt offentlige virke, er det for å si: “Følg meg!” Deri ligger to samsvarende oppfordringer: for det første, oppfordringen til å “vandre slik som Kristus vandret”, barmhjertig hjelpende, omsorgsfullt oppmerksomt; for det andre, oppfordringen til å bli del av et fellesskap.
Klyngen med individer som trasket i Jesu fotspor ble til det farverike, komplekse, rause fellesskap vi kjenner som Kirken.
Caritas, slik organisasjonen består i dag, ble grunnlagt på 50-tallet. To verdenskriger hadde vist folk i nord og syd, øst og vest hvor destruktivt mennesket kan være. Man hadde sett hvor fullstendig en samfunnsordning kan klappe sammen. Italieneren Primo Levi, en jødisk kjemiker som ble deportert til Auschwitz i 1944, satt i samme tidsrom og skrev på en bok som utkom med tittelen, Hvis dette er et menneske i 1958. Boken var tenkt som “Dokumentasjon for en stille studie av menneskets sinn”. Den er en analytisk utlegning av konsentrasjonsleirenes helvete. I innledning leser vi:
Mangt et folk, mang en nasjon kan mer eller mindre bevisst anta at “enhver fremmed er en fiende”. Stort sett ligger denne overbevisningen langt nede i dypet, som en latent infeksjon; den viser seg kun i tilfeldige, usammenhengende handlinger, og ligger ikke til grunn for noe resonert system. Men når dette skjer, når det uuttalte dogma blir hovedpremiss i en syllogisme, da oppstår konsentrasjonsleiren ved tankerekkens slutt. […] Det er en normal tingenes tilstand at de privilegerte undertrykker de underprivilegerte; leirens sosiale struktur bygger på dette faktum. […] Det onde budskap om hva menneskers hovmod har gjort med mennesket!
Når vi ser på verden vi lever i nå, når vi hører politiske budskap som rautes hist og pist, er det bemerkelsesverdig at prinsippet, “Enhver fremmed er en fiende” på nytt har fått ben å gå på. Infeksjonen sprer seg. Mange nekter å la seg vaksinere.
Så trenger vi Caritas. Caritas står for det motsatte prinsipp. Caritas er slik velsignet revolusjonær. Caritas virker utifra vissheten om at enhver fremmed kan bli en venn. Vi minnes også om at “den fremmede” ikke alltid er en annen. “Den fremmede” kan være jeg selv. Den fremmede forplikter meg, hvis jeg ønsker å kalle meg en kristen.
Vårherre sier i evangeliet, kort tid før han går til sin lidelse: “For jeg var sulten, men dere gav meg ikke mat; jeg var tørst, men dere gav meg ikke drikke; jeg var fremmed, men dere tok ikke imot meg; jeg var uten klær, men dere kledde meg ikke; jeg var syk og i fengsel, men dere så ikke til meg” (Mt 25.42-4). Det kan vi ikke leve med.
Den hellige Benedikt, klosterlivets far i Vesten, som la grunnlag for en sivilisasjonsfornyelse på 500-tallet, da restene av Romerriket falt, foreskriver at enhver gjest som kommer til klosteret, samme hva slags bakgrunn han kommer fra, hvor fattig og forvirret han så måtte være, skal mottas som om han var Kristus selv, med aller største ærbødighet.
Slik vil, skal, Caritas virke. Slik er Caritas “Kirken i aksjon”.
Caritas er fundert på evangeliet. Caritas er i tillegg selvbevisst og takknemlig katolsk. Hva skal dét bety i omstendighetene? Ordet “katolsk” er gresk. Vi kan oversette det med “altomfattende”. Å være katolsk er å ha et vidt perspektiv som omfatter jorden og skuer lukt inn i himmelen. Men “det katolske” er også forankret lokalt — i en kirke, en menighet; i valfartssteder, pilegrimsmål og i hellige ting, tegn på den Guds evige nåde som går gjennom tiden og etterlater spor.
Å leve og virke katolsk, slik Caritas skal, er å bestå i spenning. Det katolske fellesskap er rotfestet i et jordsmonn. Det vil, etter den hellige Elisabeths eksempel, glede og trøste mennesker her og nå, på stedet. Kristen nestekjærlighet må vise seg konkret. Å bare gå og prate om den er trøttsomt. På samme tid vet det katolske fellesskap at det er del av noe større. Det finnes ingen norsk, eller for den saks skyld nordnorsk, katolisisme. Det gir ingen mening å snakke om “den norske katolske kirke”. Lokalkirken representerer Den katolske Kirke i Norge, i Tromsø, i Vår Frues Menighet, men den er del av en prinsipielt grensesprengende kommunion som er, på forunderlig vis, forskjelligartet og tross alt nøyaktig den samme om man møter den på Borneo eller på Svalbard.
Stemmer i samtiden mener vi må velge mellom det lokale eller det universelle. De hevder at vi enten må vi slette alle grenser eller brenne alle broer. Vi bes om å følge én tendens. Det minste nikk i annen retning, oppfattes som svik.
Det finnes ingen fremtid i slik samfunnsforståelse. Det har vist seg før. Det vil vise seg igjen.
Den særkatolske utfordring i vårt klima går på å forklare, og vise, at man godt kan si med Ole Brumm, “Ja takk, begge deler”. Det går an å være helt og fullt Tromsøværing, Macklojalist og TIL-supporter, mens man innser at man ikke er seg selv nok og gjestfritt åpner døren, både husets og hjertets dør, for dem og dét som bærer på en større sammenheng. Den sammenhengen kan vise seg meningsbærende. Den kan bli til velsignelse.
En slik åpen dør skal Caritas Tromsø være. Jeg gratulerer alle som har jobbet hardt for denne store dagen. Jeg ønsker dere et glederikt, fruktbart virke!
Time Standing Still
‘God is sweating blood. The world’s salvation is played out. And you, whoever you are, go about whistling? The contrast is immense, but recognizable. We have all experienced something of the kind: when someone we love has died, when we have received a serious diagnosis, when we are betrayed in friendship, when we have done something despicable: time seems to stand still. All our attention, all our powers of soul, are absorbed by this one, all-embracing reality; yet the world carries on regardless. We cannot fathom it. Are people around us then deaf and blind? Grief and rage can arise in us at such times as from an erupting volcano.’ From Healing Wounds, which has just come out in Polish.
Presence
The story of Benedict’s and Scholastica’s final conversation at Monte Cassino (in chapter 33 of the 2nd Book of Gregory the Great’s Dialogues) shows that even the consummate saint may need a sister to put him in his place now and again. It also shows us the importance of meeting face to face. Scholastica took the evening bell seriously; she was a nun, after all. She also knew that the two of them had essential things to say to each other, and that time was short. The Lord confirmed her priority by means of bad weather. So that, too, can be a sign of celestial benediction.
We whose pockets are filled with gadgets that beep, purr, flash, and stir are constantly pulled away from where we are. Scholastica reminds us of the importance of being present, of giving priority to encounters.
It was Scholastica’s ‘greater love’, Gregory tells us, that made her prayer well-pleasing. Am I someone who loves? Do I even know what love is? Or is the word to me an abstraction? These are questions we might ask ourselves today, on Scholastica’s feast day.
We whose pockets are filled with gadgets that beep, purr, flash, and stir are constantly pulled away from where we are. Scholastica reminds us of the importance of being present, of giving priority to encounters.
It was Scholastica’s ‘greater love’, Gregory tells us, that made her prayer well-pleasing. Am I someone who loves? Do I even know what love is? Or is the word to me an abstraction? These are questions we might ask ourselves today, on Scholastica’s feast day.
Beyond Opaque
‘I have to believe that people simply are capable of whatever profound question or intuition or whatever it is that we live with, with the idea of God. And I think we do everything to distract ourselves from it. I think distraction is secondary to anxiety about the intuition that is really a profound part of experience for many, many people. I think we have that tendency to see people as less profound creatures than God made them. And on the basis of what is really a superficial response to them, we make generalisations about them – or even important decisions about them, about how to present religion to them, or whether there’s any point in trying to. I often teach the Bible to writers, and people are very interested and almost shy that they attach great importance to these texts and traditions, and yet have no approach to them. That kind of longing veils itself: it’s rare that we have the opportunity to address the profound seriousness of the human situation as it is manifested in people who are opaque to us.’ Marilynne Robinson’s lucid insight, in a conversation you can follow up here.
Simple Words
We’ve such a need for simple words like
‘bread’, ‘love’, ‘kindness’
to keep the blind from losing their way
in the dark.
We’ve such a need for silence – silence! –
in order, through the air and in our thoughts,
to hear the voice,
the murmured, modest voice,
of pigeons, ants, human beings, human hearts
and their cry of pain amid all that is
not love, not kindness, not bread.
Halina Poświatowska
‘bread’, ‘love’, ‘kindness’
to keep the blind from losing their way
in the dark.
We’ve such a need for silence – silence! –
in order, through the air and in our thoughts,
to hear the voice,
the murmured, modest voice,
of pigeons, ants, human beings, human hearts
and their cry of pain amid all that is
not love, not kindness, not bread.
Halina Poświatowska
Prayer and Sleep
‘Rejoice always’, says St Paul, who adds: ‘Pray continually’ (1 These 5.16f.). The Fathers took this counsel seriously. They insisted it also applies when we are asleep. How can we pray when we sleep? The question has always interested me. I found the indication of an answer in the last issue of Vita Nostra, which traces an engaging profile of some of the foundresses of Vitorchiano. One is that of Madre Maria Gentilini (1917-81), a nun who lived immersed in the liturgy; who was graced with patience; who kept the monastery’s flower garden and made lovely bouquets for the sisters’ feasts; who had intelligently interiorised the Scriptures, living within them. The nun who was next to Madre Maria in the dormitory once heard her say in her sleep: ‘Lord, do show me how you make a carnation!’ Oh to have a heart so full of the mystery of God that it fills my consciousness, my intelligence even when my mind is not awake!
Roma
It was only after watching Alfonso Cuarón’s Roma that I looked up the review by Peter Bradshaw (whose analyses are always sharp) in The Guardian. I found myself agreeing with him: the film is ‘thrilling, engrossing, moving’. The male characters of significance are perfect scoundrels. Fermín’s humiliation of Cleo is terrible. All the more luminous is her dignified humanity, utterly credible. I don’t know what it means to say that Yalitza Aparicio, who plays the part, is a ‘non-professional’. Her acting is thoroughly convincing and seems connatural. There’s a weird moment in the middle of the film. During a forest fire out in the Mexican plain a man dressed as a porcupine removes his headpiece and sings, in resounding Norwegian, this song, a hymn to our mountainous homeland. I am still trying to work out what that means in the context.
Candlemas
We confess our faith in God as ‘Maker of heaven and earth’. God is the origin of everything. He is eternal, which is to say that he is beyond any limitation of time and space. He is Spirit, which is to say that he cannot be delimited by matter. God is the source of all that exists. All that exists points towards him; but no existent thing can contain him or hold him captive. There is a chasm between the world as we experience it, we creatures wounded by sin, and the ultimate Reality God constitutes.
Sacred Scripture – what a wonderful treasure it is! – tells us how our unfathomable God gradually makes himself known to his creation. He reveals himself to the patriarchs by a call that bids them transcend themselves by moving towards a new horizon and by fire that consumes their sacrifices.
He reveals himself to Moses in an unfathomable name. In the wilderness, on the way from Egypt to Canaan, he teaches the people to know him through the law, which enables a new kind of society. They glimpse him in a pillar of cloud by day, in a pillar of fire by night, a vertical axis arising from the Ark of the Covenant, making Israel lift up its heart.
When the temple is consecrated under Solomon, God’s glory descends upon it. The divine fullness the people had admired at a distance when it crowned the top of Sinai is now in their midst, in the city of David: the Lord has chosen to dwell among his people. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, each in his way, testify how wondrous God’s glory is, and how unendurable for those who have not been purified by fire.
God dwells among his people because he wants to, in order to save and sanctify them; but he remains divinely free. When the people is faithless, the glory departs. It is hopeless to try to keep God hostage. At such times of absence, faithful women and men long intensely for his return. The promise we read of in the prophecy of Malachi, ‘The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple’, corresponds to Israel’s most passionate hope.
Today it is fulfilled. Today we walk with burning candles as representatives of the believers of any age as we confess: ‘Yes, he is here; the Lord is in our midst; we have seen his glory!’
The strange thing is that it does not consume us. By his holy incarnation, by becoming a man like us, God has found a way of displaying his glory that does not overwhelm us. He adapts himself to our limitation with divine courtesy.
At Candlemas we see how God lets his saving purpose be realised over time. It happens with linear clarity and with great peace. We are asked to peaceful witnesses to his works. In the Lord Jesus God comes to his people in peace, as peace. It is given us to adore him peacefully and to let his splendour of glory burn away our violence and inner darkness.
Today the Lord comes to his temple as ‘God from God, Light from Light.’ He comes, too, as the Lamb to be slaughtered: the Church reminds us of this fact in the prayer over the offerings.
Our God is a God who pours himself out. He is almighty and at the same time immeasurably humble. That is how he makes himself known; that is how we come to know him.
Let us not forget that, by the grace of Christ’s incarnation, we are enabled to become God’s temple. He would make his dwelling in us. The Lord Jesus gives us the grace to have our sins forgiven, to do penance and to be sanctified, to live just lives. He gives us grace, too, to see the world the way it truly is, the way God wishes it to be, for our beatitude.
As today, with Simeon and Hannah, we worship the Child who will be ‘for the fall and rising of many’, let us pray especially for lucid vision to see ourselves and the world with the eyes of Jesus, on Jesus’s terms, in order, thereby, faithfully to do our bit for the revelation of his gladsome light.
Amen.
Sacred Scripture – what a wonderful treasure it is! – tells us how our unfathomable God gradually makes himself known to his creation. He reveals himself to the patriarchs by a call that bids them transcend themselves by moving towards a new horizon and by fire that consumes their sacrifices.
He reveals himself to Moses in an unfathomable name. In the wilderness, on the way from Egypt to Canaan, he teaches the people to know him through the law, which enables a new kind of society. They glimpse him in a pillar of cloud by day, in a pillar of fire by night, a vertical axis arising from the Ark of the Covenant, making Israel lift up its heart.
When the temple is consecrated under Solomon, God’s glory descends upon it. The divine fullness the people had admired at a distance when it crowned the top of Sinai is now in their midst, in the city of David: the Lord has chosen to dwell among his people. Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel, each in his way, testify how wondrous God’s glory is, and how unendurable for those who have not been purified by fire.
God dwells among his people because he wants to, in order to save and sanctify them; but he remains divinely free. When the people is faithless, the glory departs. It is hopeless to try to keep God hostage. At such times of absence, faithful women and men long intensely for his return. The promise we read of in the prophecy of Malachi, ‘The Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple’, corresponds to Israel’s most passionate hope.
Today it is fulfilled. Today we walk with burning candles as representatives of the believers of any age as we confess: ‘Yes, he is here; the Lord is in our midst; we have seen his glory!’
The strange thing is that it does not consume us. By his holy incarnation, by becoming a man like us, God has found a way of displaying his glory that does not overwhelm us. He adapts himself to our limitation with divine courtesy.
At Candlemas we see how God lets his saving purpose be realised over time. It happens with linear clarity and with great peace. We are asked to peaceful witnesses to his works. In the Lord Jesus God comes to his people in peace, as peace. It is given us to adore him peacefully and to let his splendour of glory burn away our violence and inner darkness.
Today the Lord comes to his temple as ‘God from God, Light from Light.’ He comes, too, as the Lamb to be slaughtered: the Church reminds us of this fact in the prayer over the offerings.
Our God is a God who pours himself out. He is almighty and at the same time immeasurably humble. That is how he makes himself known; that is how we come to know him.
Let us not forget that, by the grace of Christ’s incarnation, we are enabled to become God’s temple. He would make his dwelling in us. The Lord Jesus gives us the grace to have our sins forgiven, to do penance and to be sanctified, to live just lives. He gives us grace, too, to see the world the way it truly is, the way God wishes it to be, for our beatitude.
As today, with Simeon and Hannah, we worship the Child who will be ‘for the fall and rising of many’, let us pray especially for lucid vision to see ourselves and the world with the eyes of Jesus, on Jesus’s terms, in order, thereby, faithfully to do our bit for the revelation of his gladsome light.
Amen.