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:
Erasmus Lecture ‘Transhumance, an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity since 2023, is by definition constant drifting across borders. If you are caught up in transhumance you do not stay behind a wall trying to work, or shut, out what people say and Read More
Sr Anne-Lise RIP Sister Anne-Lise Strøm was buried today. We are many who will miss her deeply. She was a fully given person. In a book of conversations she published with Brita Rosenberg in 1997, she described her departure from Oslo in 1961, Read More
Desert Fathers 47 
You can find this episode in video format here – a dedicated page – and pick it up in audio wherever you listen to podcasts. On YouTube, the full range of episodes can be found here.
About Abba Netras, the disciple Read More
About Abba Netras, the disciple Read More
Requiem for Priests 2 Macabees 6,18–31: Eleazar, one of the foremost teachers of the Law, a man advanced in years and of beautiful countenance, was being forced to open his mouth wide to swallow pig’s flesh.
Luke 19,1–10: «Zaccaheus, today I must stay at Read More
Luke 19,1–10: «Zaccaheus, today I must stay at Read More
33 Sunday C Malachi 4.1-2: The day is coming now, burning like a furnace.
2 Thessalonians 3.7-12: Go on quietly working.
Luke 21.5-19: Everything will be destroyed.
In his remarkable memoirs Amos Oz described his childhood in Jerusalem in the 50s. The pioneering spirit was Read More
2 Thessalonians 3.7-12: Go on quietly working.
Luke 21.5-19: Everything will be destroyed.
In his remarkable memoirs Amos Oz described his childhood in Jerusalem in the 50s. The pioneering spirit was Read More
Renewal of Vows This homily was given in the abbey church of Fontgombault at the conclusion of the community’s retreat, at a Mass during which the monks renewed their vows. In the monastic world, 13 November is celebrated as the feast of All Read More
Towards Dawn ‘It is often casually said that we live in post-Christian times. I believe that statement to be false. Theologically, the term ‘post-Christian’ makes no sense. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, and all the letters in between. He carries Read More
Desert Fathers 46 You can find this episode in video format here – a dedicated page – and pick it up in audio wherever you listen to podcasts. On YouTube, the full range of episodes can be found here.
They say about Abba John Read More
They say about Abba John Read More
Erasmus Lecture
‘Transhumance, an Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity since 2023, is by definition constant drifting across borders. If you are caught up in transhumance you do not stay behind a wall trying to work, or shut, out what people say and do on the other side; you move back-and-forth seeking sustenance in changing landscapes for yourself and your flock. Mireille Gansel develops the metaphor of transhumance in a twofold way. On the one hand, languages constitute pastures. Shepherded from one to the other is significant content — in a poem, novel, treatise, or confessional statement seeking new form. On the other hand, language itself can be thought of as a flock led from winter to summer grazing with the translator as its shepherd. Language, in this account, is a nomad reconciled to the transient nature of any ‘home’.’
From this year’s Erasmus Lecture, now available on YouTube.
From this year’s Erasmus Lecture, now available on YouTube.
Sr Anne-Lise RIP
Sister Anne-Lise Strøm was buried today. We are many who will miss her deeply. She was a fully given person. In a book of conversations she published with Brita Rosenberg in 1997, she described her departure from Oslo in 1961, when she set out for Lourdes to join the convent of enclosed Dominican nuns there, on a hill overlooking the sanctuary: ‘The train started moving. Her father ran alongside it crying out, ‘Anne! Write!’ He was weeping.’ It seemed as if this intelligent, enthusiastic young woman full of joie de vivre was lost to the world. Little did one know. Through her long, faithful monastic life, Sr Anne-Lise turned into the Catholic Church’s best known (and probably best loved) ambassador in Norway. She directed, taught, consoled, and encouraged countless people with her characteristic mixture of lucid realism and unshakable trust in the transforming power of God’s mercy. She was funny, full of self-irony; at the same time inscrutable, with her mind set on eternity. Grace and experience made her wise. She was a thoroughly loveable human being. May God grant her the hundredfold she herself so credibly embodied.
Desert Fathers 47
You can find this episode in video format here – a dedicated page – and pick it up in audio wherever you listen to podcasts. On YouTube, the full range of episodes can be found here.
About Abba Netras, the disciple of Abba Silvanos, it was said that he, as long as he lived in his cell on Mount Sinai, paced himself reasonably on account of the needs of the body. But when he became bishop of Pharan, he began to drive himself very hard. So his disciple said to him: ‘Abba, when we were in the desert, you did not practise this kind of asceticism.’ The elder said to him: ‘There we had the desert, and peace [hesychia], and poverty. I wished to manage my body in such a way that I would not fall ill and start looking for what I had not. Now, though, we have come into the world and are surrounded by many temptations. For that reason I chastise my body in order not to put to death the monk [in me]. And should I fall ill here, there will be somebody at hand to assist me.’
When illness came their way, the Fathers received it as a welcome guest, even as they opened their heart’s door hospitably to Sister Death, the pasch by which they would enter eternal life and know the fulfilment of their earthly striving. They believed in divine providence. It would not occur to them, if they were true to their habit, to murmur at any trial that came their way as gift. They would, however, remonstrate with anyone who, for want of prudence, brought harm upon himself or herself.
To visit the sick is a corporate work of mercy, a Gospel commandment. St Benedict prescribes it in his Rule as a monastic observance. If a monk in the Desert fell ill, his neighbours would be obliged to care for him. Abba Netras, for as long as he lived on Sinai, an inaccessible place, would spare his brethren such inconvenience. He lived therefore with moderation and did not take austerities too far, to spare himself worry and others trouble, thus to be able to live peacefully, offering up a constant sacrifice of praise in the very place where God had deigned to make his presence felt to the people of Israel. The hardships and graces of Sinai were sufficient to keep him, there, on the straight and narrow. There was no chance of indulging in luxury: life was materially poor. Spiritually, it was rich by virtue of the incomparable stillness the desert offers, teaching a man to become a hesychast.
Netras was not permitted to remain in this blessed state. Not in the form of sickness did providence visit him, but through a call, administered through holy Church, to a different state of life. Netras was made bishop of Pharan, the main urban centre of the Sinai peninsula in Roman times — the Wadi Feiran of modern Arabic. Compelled to descend from the mountain into the plain, he was obliged to tear himself away from the embrace of Rachel, a symbol of the contemplative life since Origen, to enter the fray that constitutes a bishop’s ministry, made up of countless daily demands and distractions, and necessarily exposed to a degree of worldliness.
In the context of this shift, Bishop Netras chose to organise life differently. He, who had been a paragon of reasonableness, started to practise strict fasts and vigils. One might have expected him to the opposite, assuming a grand public persona. Many would have expected him to do so. But instead of relaxing, he got tougher on himself. This is what caused the brother who lived with him in the bishop’s palace, even as he had shared his life on Sinai, to be thoughtful. He could not see the logic of Netras’s comportment, so asked: What, Father, is this new observance about?
Netras’s answer springs from both realism and self-knowledge. As long as his context of life rendered extravagance impossible, he did not need to look for supplementary mortification. The desert, in its poverty and quiet, had served as guarantor of monastic probity. His removal to the city changed all that. There was no longer a regular life to ensure an equilibrium of activity and prayer. Local grandees, such as they were, would invite him to parties. Some people would flatter him, others would deplore him. Staying spiritually on an even course, which on Sinai had felt almost automatic, was no longer easy. Netras experienced the need for props he had not required before. Consequently he took measures, keeping outward temptations in check by greater inward rigour. Explaining this to his brother, he said he did not wish to put to death the monk in himself. It was as a monk that he had been called to serve as bishop; for him to serve well, the monk must keep alive.
Netras does not moan about the part entrusted to him. He would no doubt have thought as Archbishop Cyril of Alexandria did when an abbot asked him: ‘Who is greater in his state of life, the likes of us, who have lots of brothers placed under our care whom we lead, each according to his need, towards salvation, or those who in desert places work out their own salvation?’ Cyril answered: ‘Why wedge apart Elijah and Moses, seeing that they were both well-pleasing to God?’ This exemplifies discernment of the kind the Fathers counselled: an ability to see things and situations as they are, without illusions but also without melodrama, trusting that God’s provident grace can draw blessings out of everything as long as we take right measures to stay faithful and attentive where we happen to be, keeping alive our deepest, truest self, the one that grows and blossoms out of God’s call.
The landscape around Mount Sinai. Wikimedia Commons.
About Abba Netras, the disciple of Abba Silvanos, it was said that he, as long as he lived in his cell on Mount Sinai, paced himself reasonably on account of the needs of the body. But when he became bishop of Pharan, he began to drive himself very hard. So his disciple said to him: ‘Abba, when we were in the desert, you did not practise this kind of asceticism.’ The elder said to him: ‘There we had the desert, and peace [hesychia], and poverty. I wished to manage my body in such a way that I would not fall ill and start looking for what I had not. Now, though, we have come into the world and are surrounded by many temptations. For that reason I chastise my body in order not to put to death the monk [in me]. And should I fall ill here, there will be somebody at hand to assist me.’
When illness came their way, the Fathers received it as a welcome guest, even as they opened their heart’s door hospitably to Sister Death, the pasch by which they would enter eternal life and know the fulfilment of their earthly striving. They believed in divine providence. It would not occur to them, if they were true to their habit, to murmur at any trial that came their way as gift. They would, however, remonstrate with anyone who, for want of prudence, brought harm upon himself or herself.
To visit the sick is a corporate work of mercy, a Gospel commandment. St Benedict prescribes it in his Rule as a monastic observance. If a monk in the Desert fell ill, his neighbours would be obliged to care for him. Abba Netras, for as long as he lived on Sinai, an inaccessible place, would spare his brethren such inconvenience. He lived therefore with moderation and did not take austerities too far, to spare himself worry and others trouble, thus to be able to live peacefully, offering up a constant sacrifice of praise in the very place where God had deigned to make his presence felt to the people of Israel. The hardships and graces of Sinai were sufficient to keep him, there, on the straight and narrow. There was no chance of indulging in luxury: life was materially poor. Spiritually, it was rich by virtue of the incomparable stillness the desert offers, teaching a man to become a hesychast.
Netras was not permitted to remain in this blessed state. Not in the form of sickness did providence visit him, but through a call, administered through holy Church, to a different state of life. Netras was made bishop of Pharan, the main urban centre of the Sinai peninsula in Roman times — the Wadi Feiran of modern Arabic. Compelled to descend from the mountain into the plain, he was obliged to tear himself away from the embrace of Rachel, a symbol of the contemplative life since Origen, to enter the fray that constitutes a bishop’s ministry, made up of countless daily demands and distractions, and necessarily exposed to a degree of worldliness.
In the context of this shift, Bishop Netras chose to organise life differently. He, who had been a paragon of reasonableness, started to practise strict fasts and vigils. One might have expected him to the opposite, assuming a grand public persona. Many would have expected him to do so. But instead of relaxing, he got tougher on himself. This is what caused the brother who lived with him in the bishop’s palace, even as he had shared his life on Sinai, to be thoughtful. He could not see the logic of Netras’s comportment, so asked: What, Father, is this new observance about?
Netras’s answer springs from both realism and self-knowledge. As long as his context of life rendered extravagance impossible, he did not need to look for supplementary mortification. The desert, in its poverty and quiet, had served as guarantor of monastic probity. His removal to the city changed all that. There was no longer a regular life to ensure an equilibrium of activity and prayer. Local grandees, such as they were, would invite him to parties. Some people would flatter him, others would deplore him. Staying spiritually on an even course, which on Sinai had felt almost automatic, was no longer easy. Netras experienced the need for props he had not required before. Consequently he took measures, keeping outward temptations in check by greater inward rigour. Explaining this to his brother, he said he did not wish to put to death the monk in himself. It was as a monk that he had been called to serve as bishop; for him to serve well, the monk must keep alive.
Netras does not moan about the part entrusted to him. He would no doubt have thought as Archbishop Cyril of Alexandria did when an abbot asked him: ‘Who is greater in his state of life, the likes of us, who have lots of brothers placed under our care whom we lead, each according to his need, towards salvation, or those who in desert places work out their own salvation?’ Cyril answered: ‘Why wedge apart Elijah and Moses, seeing that they were both well-pleasing to God?’ This exemplifies discernment of the kind the Fathers counselled: an ability to see things and situations as they are, without illusions but also without melodrama, trusting that God’s provident grace can draw blessings out of everything as long as we take right measures to stay faithful and attentive where we happen to be, keeping alive our deepest, truest self, the one that grows and blossoms out of God’s call.
The landscape around Mount Sinai. Wikimedia Commons.
Requiem for Priests
2 Macabees 6,18–31: Eleazar, one of the foremost teachers of the Law, a man advanced in years and of beautiful countenance, was being forced to open his mouth wide to swallow pig’s flesh.
Luke 19,1–10: «Zaccaheus, today I must stay at your house.»
It’s November. We pray for the dead. Tonight we celebrate a Requiem for the deceased priests of the prelature.
The lectionary lets us read the story of Eleazar from the Second Book of Maccabees.
It unfolds in the 170s BC. The Holy Land is a colony of the Seleucid Empire, heir to that of Alexander. At its head is Antiochus Epiphanes, an ambitious, rabid enemy of the God of Israel. Antiochus set about systematically imposing idol worship on the people. He would have none of the inheritance of Patriarchs and Prophets. He would eliminate remembrance of the Covenant. Nothing was to nurture devotion to the one true God, based on the commandment: ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me’.
This tendency is typical of totalitarian regimes that lack an ethical foundation. To such, set on exalting themselves to absolute status, the mere thought of Israel, the people of God’s promise that reminds the world, by its mere presence, that any human, bureaucratic policy must be tried in the light of a divine standard, is odious.
Not every believer is a hero face to face with such a campaign. If one is made to fall, to bend the knee to the king as if he were god, many others, too, are gained. One compromised conscience makes others fall, like domino pieces.
But if one resists! Then the pretensions of power are unmasked.
Eleazar possesses the needed resolve. He, a man over ninety, is not concerned just to save his skin. He would not let his weakness become a stumbling block to others. So he gives his life without histrionic gestures. He thinks about the young, he says. He would like to give them an example of what life is about, and ‘of how to make a good death, eagerly and generously, for the venerable and holy laws’.
This learned old man resisted royal might. He prevailed, though he lost his life. Remembrance of his fidelity gave others strength to live faithfully.
We count, as far as I know, no martyrs among the priests who have served in the prelature of Trondheim. Few of them are idealisable; they had, like most people, their curiosities and eccentricities. Many amusing stories are told about them. When with my inner eye I look out over the assembly of these God-given men, however, when I behold those who laid the foundation for the many good things we enjoy today, what I see first of all is fidelity and perseverance. In some I see an image of that ‘very beautiful countenance’ ascribed to Eleazar, a sign that grace has found a physical foothold.
Our priests give their lives that others might live. They proclaimed the fullness of faith. The made it possible for Christ to be bodily present here up north, so that the sanctuary light might burn in our churches, a source of comfort and strength, especially when storm winds raged outside. It is an excellent thing to have a good intention. The substances of an intention, though, is tested by time. Many of the priests who laboured here could have lived more visible, more publicly appreciated, more apparently successful lives elsewhere; but they chose a hidden, often austere existence as weather-beaten shepherds of a little flock because the Lord in his wondrous providence had called them here.
We remember them with gratitude and reverence. May the Lord give them a rich reward for their endeavour and raise them up to life eternal! And may he grant us grace to be faithful to the lot God entrusts to us, for the glory of his name and the world’s salvation.
May our good priests rest in peace! Amen.
Requiem by Louis Charles Crespin
Luke 19,1–10: «Zaccaheus, today I must stay at your house.»
It’s November. We pray for the dead. Tonight we celebrate a Requiem for the deceased priests of the prelature.
The lectionary lets us read the story of Eleazar from the Second Book of Maccabees.
It unfolds in the 170s BC. The Holy Land is a colony of the Seleucid Empire, heir to that of Alexander. At its head is Antiochus Epiphanes, an ambitious, rabid enemy of the God of Israel. Antiochus set about systematically imposing idol worship on the people. He would have none of the inheritance of Patriarchs and Prophets. He would eliminate remembrance of the Covenant. Nothing was to nurture devotion to the one true God, based on the commandment: ‘Thou shalt have no other gods before me’.
This tendency is typical of totalitarian regimes that lack an ethical foundation. To such, set on exalting themselves to absolute status, the mere thought of Israel, the people of God’s promise that reminds the world, by its mere presence, that any human, bureaucratic policy must be tried in the light of a divine standard, is odious.
Not every believer is a hero face to face with such a campaign. If one is made to fall, to bend the knee to the king as if he were god, many others, too, are gained. One compromised conscience makes others fall, like domino pieces.
But if one resists! Then the pretensions of power are unmasked.
Eleazar possesses the needed resolve. He, a man over ninety, is not concerned just to save his skin. He would not let his weakness become a stumbling block to others. So he gives his life without histrionic gestures. He thinks about the young, he says. He would like to give them an example of what life is about, and ‘of how to make a good death, eagerly and generously, for the venerable and holy laws’.
This learned old man resisted royal might. He prevailed, though he lost his life. Remembrance of his fidelity gave others strength to live faithfully.
We count, as far as I know, no martyrs among the priests who have served in the prelature of Trondheim. Few of them are idealisable; they had, like most people, their curiosities and eccentricities. Many amusing stories are told about them. When with my inner eye I look out over the assembly of these God-given men, however, when I behold those who laid the foundation for the many good things we enjoy today, what I see first of all is fidelity and perseverance. In some I see an image of that ‘very beautiful countenance’ ascribed to Eleazar, a sign that grace has found a physical foothold.
Our priests give their lives that others might live. They proclaimed the fullness of faith. The made it possible for Christ to be bodily present here up north, so that the sanctuary light might burn in our churches, a source of comfort and strength, especially when storm winds raged outside. It is an excellent thing to have a good intention. The substances of an intention, though, is tested by time. Many of the priests who laboured here could have lived more visible, more publicly appreciated, more apparently successful lives elsewhere; but they chose a hidden, often austere existence as weather-beaten shepherds of a little flock because the Lord in his wondrous providence had called them here.
We remember them with gratitude and reverence. May the Lord give them a rich reward for their endeavour and raise them up to life eternal! And may he grant us grace to be faithful to the lot God entrusts to us, for the glory of his name and the world’s salvation.
May our good priests rest in peace! Amen.
Requiem by Louis Charles Crespin
33 Sunday C
Malachi 4.1-2: The day is coming now, burning like a furnace.
2 Thessalonians 3.7-12: Go on quietly working.
Luke 21.5-19: Everything will be destroyed.
In his remarkable memoirs Amos Oz described his childhood in Jerusalem in the 50s. The pioneering spirit was strong. Societal development was seen as fulfilment of prophecy. ‘Isaiah’, writes Oz, ‘was read as tantamount to daily news’. We may smile at such a remark. We may think it naive to think one participates, like that, in the end-times. On the other side: if the Bible is God’s word and if, as Jesus says, ‘everything written in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms’ must be accomplished, then it is our duty vigilantly to interpret the signs of the times in the light of divine revelation. We must look for the eternal in time, in our time.
It is not hard to apply today’s Gospel to our world of today. Revolutions and wars surround us close at hand. We take earthquakes, plagues and famines for granted, as we do hurricanes and floods. What about the great signs in the heavens? We see them in the form of insanely fast technological advances.
A generation ago, a mobile phone was a luxury. Now you can’t take the bus without one. So-called ‘artificial intelligence’ conditions us increasingly. No one knows where it will lead. Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of AI, thinks there’s a 20% chance that AI might extinguish humanity within 30 years — not long. ‘We’ve never’, he says, ‘had to deal with things more intelligent than ourselves before.’
With such uncertainty abroad, and with the anxiety that follows, it’s not strange that voices are calling out, ‘The time is near!’, or even, ‘I am he!’. Just think: these days the Antichrist is a subject of conversation in Silicon Valley.
How can we, as Christians, relate to such a reality? In the Gospel the Lord gives us three concrete counsels: first, we are not to let ourselves be misled; secondly, we must take the opportunity to bear witness; thirdly, we are to have faith that God will give us, faced with enmity, irresistible eloquence and wisdom.
‘Take care not to be misled’. To avoid being misled, we must have a clear idea of where we are going. For a Christian life’s goal is not a place on the map or an abstract ideal: it is a presence, a person. ‘Follow me’, says Jesus. John wrote: ‘He who says, “I abide in him”, must walk just as he walked.’ To walk as Christ walked amounts to more than lying on a couch watching YouTube. We must know him as he is. Our principal source is Sacred Scripture: the Gospels above all, but also the Epistles, the Acts, and the Apocalypse. This is a time to read Scripture seriously. The Old Testament is indispensable background for the New. The Bible must be read with the mind of Church: it cannot be privatised. We must be formed by the sacraments and by the Church’s teaching. We build up Christ’s mystical Body by keeping the commandments, by looking after each other. Precisely our Catholic communion, our oneness with others in Christ, protects us from being misled. The Enemy of good always tries to draw us away from unity into atomised solitude. Be on guard therefore against individualism. Be on guard against pride and ambition, against all forms of self-glorification.
‘That will be your opportunity to bear witness’. The context Jesus presupposes is austere: it is made up of false accusations, persecution, arrests. The cause of God’s love is set on a collision course with our fallen world. That’s just how it is. We are called to do our utmost to make the world more just, but we shall never succeed fully. Our sick world needs redemption. We must be prepared for opposition. Endurance in great matters is prepared by endurance in small. How do I respond to opposition, to not getting my way? Do I get discouraged and edgy, or do I keep peace of heart? To witness to Christ’s grace, I must first of all deal with my anger, my passions. Each day gives us opportunities to practise.
‘I myself shall give you eloquence and a wisdom your opponents cannot resist.’ This promise is not about assured success in public debating. Remember: Jesus spoke these words to the Twelve by the Temple just before he entered Jerusalem as the new Paschal Lamb, about to surrender in silence to suffer and die for the people. Irresistible testimony may be that of fidelity, quite simply, of self-outpouring unto death. Must of us are preserved from such a trial, thank God; but it sets a standard we must measure ourselves by. That is why the Church, in the Canon, provides long lists of martyrs as allies and exemplars. God perfects his power in weakness. He has done so before. He can do so now, with us.
Let us then live as witnesses to the eternal in time. Whether our time will be short or long, we cannot know. It is not all that important. What matters is to be tools God can use for his saving purpose. We shall be usable to the extent that his peace governs us, that we let ourselves be reconciled with him and with one another, that we learn to love, that we live truly human lives, the way God truly became man.
A sign that we are on the right track is this: if something of Christ’s joy is alive in us. In today’s collect we pray for ‘the constant gladness of being devoted to you.’ The more deeply that gladness is rooted in us, the more impregnable we shall be to fear.
Amen.
Caravaggio, Ecco homo! Wikimedia Commons.
2 Thessalonians 3.7-12: Go on quietly working.
Luke 21.5-19: Everything will be destroyed.
In his remarkable memoirs Amos Oz described his childhood in Jerusalem in the 50s. The pioneering spirit was strong. Societal development was seen as fulfilment of prophecy. ‘Isaiah’, writes Oz, ‘was read as tantamount to daily news’. We may smile at such a remark. We may think it naive to think one participates, like that, in the end-times. On the other side: if the Bible is God’s word and if, as Jesus says, ‘everything written in the Law of Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms’ must be accomplished, then it is our duty vigilantly to interpret the signs of the times in the light of divine revelation. We must look for the eternal in time, in our time.
It is not hard to apply today’s Gospel to our world of today. Revolutions and wars surround us close at hand. We take earthquakes, plagues and famines for granted, as we do hurricanes and floods. What about the great signs in the heavens? We see them in the form of insanely fast technological advances.
A generation ago, a mobile phone was a luxury. Now you can’t take the bus without one. So-called ‘artificial intelligence’ conditions us increasingly. No one knows where it will lead. Geoffrey Hinton, the godfather of AI, thinks there’s a 20% chance that AI might extinguish humanity within 30 years — not long. ‘We’ve never’, he says, ‘had to deal with things more intelligent than ourselves before.’
With such uncertainty abroad, and with the anxiety that follows, it’s not strange that voices are calling out, ‘The time is near!’, or even, ‘I am he!’. Just think: these days the Antichrist is a subject of conversation in Silicon Valley.
How can we, as Christians, relate to such a reality? In the Gospel the Lord gives us three concrete counsels: first, we are not to let ourselves be misled; secondly, we must take the opportunity to bear witness; thirdly, we are to have faith that God will give us, faced with enmity, irresistible eloquence and wisdom.
‘Take care not to be misled’. To avoid being misled, we must have a clear idea of where we are going. For a Christian life’s goal is not a place on the map or an abstract ideal: it is a presence, a person. ‘Follow me’, says Jesus. John wrote: ‘He who says, “I abide in him”, must walk just as he walked.’ To walk as Christ walked amounts to more than lying on a couch watching YouTube. We must know him as he is. Our principal source is Sacred Scripture: the Gospels above all, but also the Epistles, the Acts, and the Apocalypse. This is a time to read Scripture seriously. The Old Testament is indispensable background for the New. The Bible must be read with the mind of Church: it cannot be privatised. We must be formed by the sacraments and by the Church’s teaching. We build up Christ’s mystical Body by keeping the commandments, by looking after each other. Precisely our Catholic communion, our oneness with others in Christ, protects us from being misled. The Enemy of good always tries to draw us away from unity into atomised solitude. Be on guard therefore against individualism. Be on guard against pride and ambition, against all forms of self-glorification.
‘That will be your opportunity to bear witness’. The context Jesus presupposes is austere: it is made up of false accusations, persecution, arrests. The cause of God’s love is set on a collision course with our fallen world. That’s just how it is. We are called to do our utmost to make the world more just, but we shall never succeed fully. Our sick world needs redemption. We must be prepared for opposition. Endurance in great matters is prepared by endurance in small. How do I respond to opposition, to not getting my way? Do I get discouraged and edgy, or do I keep peace of heart? To witness to Christ’s grace, I must first of all deal with my anger, my passions. Each day gives us opportunities to practise.
‘I myself shall give you eloquence and a wisdom your opponents cannot resist.’ This promise is not about assured success in public debating. Remember: Jesus spoke these words to the Twelve by the Temple just before he entered Jerusalem as the new Paschal Lamb, about to surrender in silence to suffer and die for the people. Irresistible testimony may be that of fidelity, quite simply, of self-outpouring unto death. Must of us are preserved from such a trial, thank God; but it sets a standard we must measure ourselves by. That is why the Church, in the Canon, provides long lists of martyrs as allies and exemplars. God perfects his power in weakness. He has done so before. He can do so now, with us.
Let us then live as witnesses to the eternal in time. Whether our time will be short or long, we cannot know. It is not all that important. What matters is to be tools God can use for his saving purpose. We shall be usable to the extent that his peace governs us, that we let ourselves be reconciled with him and with one another, that we learn to love, that we live truly human lives, the way God truly became man.
A sign that we are on the right track is this: if something of Christ’s joy is alive in us. In today’s collect we pray for ‘the constant gladness of being devoted to you.’ The more deeply that gladness is rooted in us, the more impregnable we shall be to fear.
Amen.
Caravaggio, Ecco homo! Wikimedia Commons.
Renewal of Vows
This homily was given in the abbey church of Fontgombault at the conclusion of the community’s retreat, at a Mass during which the monks renewed their vows. In the monastic world, 13 November is celebrated as the feast of All Benedictine and Cistercian Saints. You can find an English translation by scrolling down.
Alors Pierre prit la parole et dit à Jésus : « Voici que nous avons tout quitté pour te suivre : quelle sera donc notre part ? » Jésus leur déclara : « Amen, je vous le dis : lors du renouvellement du monde, lorsque le Fils de l’homme siégera sur son trône de gloire, vous qui m’avez suivi, vous siégerez vous aussi sur douze trônes pour juger les douze tribus d’Israël. Et celui qui aura quitté, à cause de mon nom, des maisons, des frères, des sœurs, un père, une mère, des enfants, ou une terre, recevra le centuple, et il aura en héritage la vie éternelle.
Quand Saint Benoît décrit la profession monastique, il souligne le rapport entre celle-ci et l’autel. Le candidat demande d’être admis par une pétition écrite ‘de sa propre main’ qu’il dépose sur l’autel. Seulement ensuite entonne-t-il ce verset du Psaume 118 qui fait frémir tout coeur bénédictin:
Suscipe me, Domine, secundum eloquium tuum et vivam; et ne confundas me ab expectatione mea.
Son oblation, suscitée par la parole du Seigneur, a été perçue comme un appel. Le profès a pris au sérieux la question posée par le Christ dans le Prologue à la Sainte Règle: Quis est homo qui vult vitam?
Bien sûr qu’il désire la vie, et comment!
Il veut vivre en plénitude, sans compromis. Voilà pourquoi il se consacre à vie au service du Seigneur de la Vie, qui donna sa vie pour que nous vivions, sauvés une bonne fois pour toutes du Règne de la Mort.
La source dont coule ce salut est le sacrifice du Christ. L’autel le manifeste. L’autel est le gardien de la plus noble aspiration du moine, qui, par sa profession, entre librement dans une dynamique pascale. Le moine consent à être conformé au Christ crucifié pour connaître la force de sa résurrection. Dans l’obscur quotidien il choisit de participer, par la patience, à la passion du Saveur.
Le lien entre l’oblation monastique et l’oblation du Calvaire devient plus explicite encore quand Saint Benoît décrit la procédure pour accueillir des oblats présentés par leurs parents au monastère. Dans ces cas, la pétition, écrite par le père de l’oblat, est non seulement mise sur l’autel mais enveloppée, avec les dons de l’offertoire et la main de l’enfant, ‘dans la nappe de l’autel’.
La valeur symbolique de la nappe est prodigieuse. Elle nous met devant les yeux les langes dans lesquels l’Enfant Jésus fut enveloppé à sa naissance; elle représente le linceul où son Corps Sacré fut placé 33 ans plus tard, après la déposition de la Croix; elle nous laisse pressentir le vêtement blanc des élus, conviés à se réjouir éternellement de l’alliance nuptiale de l’Agneau.
Toutes ces dimension de la vie de Christ, de la vie en Christ, marquent l’existence du moine. Il s’associe aux éléments qui deviendront le Corps et le Sang du Christ. Le moine aussi est destiné à la transformation, exposé par grâce à la divinisante lumière qui le fera christophore, un porteur du Christ, une preuve vivante de la grâce de l’incarnation.
‘Nous avons tout quitté’, dit Saint Pierre dans l’évangile. L’affirmation s’applique à la vie monastique. On arrive au monastère avec bien peu de bagage, ayant laissé derrière soi des choses précieuse et chères. Pendant un certain temps la mémoire de ces choses peut inspirer en nous la nostalgie.
Bientôt, pourtant, la réalité du centuple promis se manifeste à nous, nous laissant ébahis. Comparée à la générosité de Dieu, la nôtre n’est qu’une bien pauvre chose. Le moine apprend à se réjouir de sa pauvreté pour que Dieu la comble. Il apprend à se réjouir de sa faiblesse pour que Dieu y déploie sa puissance.
En renouvelant nos voeux, mettons notre espérance en lui; conformons, à nouveau, notre volonté à la sienne.
Avant-hier, à Saint Anselme, le Saint Père a dit à la communauté bénédictine rassemblée: ‘Nous ne pouvons répondre aux exigences de la vocation qu’en plaçant le Christ au centre de notre existence et de notre mission. Il faut partir de l’acte de foi par lequel nous le reconnaissons comme Sauveur pour ensuite traduire cet acte dans la prière, dans l’étude, dans l’engagement d’une vie sainte.’
Il faut viser la sainteté.
La fête de ce jour, la Toussaint Bénédictine, nous rappelle que la vie monastique a été une voie de sanctification pour des multitudes. Une nuée de témoins aimables et crédibles nous entoure. Puissent nos vies radicalement données être dignes de leur exemple, apportant de la joie au Coeur de Dieu et du réconfort à notre monde qui pleure.
Amen.
***
When St Benedict describes monastic profession, he stresses its connection with the altar. The novice asks for admission by means of a petition ‘written in his own hand’, which he puts on the altar. Only then does he intone the verse from Psalm 118 that makes each Benedictine heart quiver:
Uphold me, Lord, according to thy promise, that I may live, and let me not be put to shame in my hope!
His oblation, called forth by the promise of the Lord, has been perceived as a call. The new monks has taken seriously the question posed by Christ in the Prologue to the Holy Rule: Quis est homo qui vult vitam? ‘Who is the man desiring life?’
Of course he desires life — and how!
He wants to live entirely, without compromise. That is why he consecrates his life to the service of the Lord of Life, who gave his life that we might live, saved once for all from the clutches of the Reign of Death.
The source from which this salvation flows is Christ’s sacrifice. The altar makes it manifest. The altar guards the noblest aspirations of the monk who, by profession, freely enters a Paschal dynamic. The monk consents to being conformed to Christ Crucified in order to know the power of his resurrection. In the obscurity of everyday life he chooses to participate by patience in the Passion of Christ.
The link between monastic oblation and the oblation of Calvary becomes more explicit still when St Benedict describes the procedure for receiving oblates presented by their parents to the monastery. In such cases, the petition, written by the oblate’s father, is not only placed on the altar, bur wrapped, along with the offertory gifts and the child’s hand ‘in the altarcloth’.
The symbolic value of the altarcloth is prodigious. It shows forth the swaddling cloths in which the Child Jesus was wrapped at his birth; it represents the shroud in which his Sacred Body was placed 33 years later, on being lifted down from the Cross; and it points forward to the white garment worn by the elect, called to rejoice eternally in the marriage covenant of the Lamb.
All these aspects of Christ’s life, of life in Christ, seal the monk’s existence. He associates himself with the elements that will become the Body and Blood of Christ. He, too, is destined for transformation, exposed to the deifying light that will make him a Christophoros, a ‘Christ-bearer’, a living proof of the grace of the incarnation.
‘We have left everything’, says St Peter in the Gospel. His affirmation applies to monastic life. We arrive at the monastery carrying only a modest knapsack, having left behind many dear and precious things. For a while, remembrance of these things may inspire a little nostalgia.
Soon, though, the reality of the promised hundredfold becomes evident, leaving us amazed. Compared to the generosity of God, ours is but a trifle. The monk learns to rejoice in his poverty, that God might fill it. He learns to rejoice in his weakness, that God may show his strength within it.
As we renew our vows, let us place our hope in him. Let us once more conform our will to his will.
Yesterday, at Sant’Anselmo, the Holy Father told the assembled Benedictine community: ‘We can only correspond to the demands of our vocation if we put Christ at the centre of our existence and of our mission, setting out from the act of faith that lets us recognise in him the Saviour, then translating that act into our prayer, our study, and our endeavour to live a holy life.’
Indeed, we must aim for holiness.
Today’s feast, by which we venerate all Benedictine saints, reminds us that the monastic life has been a path of sanctification for multitudes. A cloud of amiable, credible witnesses surround us. May our radically given lives be worthy of their example, bringing joy to the Heart of God and consolation to our weeping world.
Amen.
Alors Pierre prit la parole et dit à Jésus : « Voici que nous avons tout quitté pour te suivre : quelle sera donc notre part ? » Jésus leur déclara : « Amen, je vous le dis : lors du renouvellement du monde, lorsque le Fils de l’homme siégera sur son trône de gloire, vous qui m’avez suivi, vous siégerez vous aussi sur douze trônes pour juger les douze tribus d’Israël. Et celui qui aura quitté, à cause de mon nom, des maisons, des frères, des sœurs, un père, une mère, des enfants, ou une terre, recevra le centuple, et il aura en héritage la vie éternelle.
Quand Saint Benoît décrit la profession monastique, il souligne le rapport entre celle-ci et l’autel. Le candidat demande d’être admis par une pétition écrite ‘de sa propre main’ qu’il dépose sur l’autel. Seulement ensuite entonne-t-il ce verset du Psaume 118 qui fait frémir tout coeur bénédictin:
Suscipe me, Domine, secundum eloquium tuum et vivam; et ne confundas me ab expectatione mea.
Son oblation, suscitée par la parole du Seigneur, a été perçue comme un appel. Le profès a pris au sérieux la question posée par le Christ dans le Prologue à la Sainte Règle: Quis est homo qui vult vitam?
Bien sûr qu’il désire la vie, et comment!
Il veut vivre en plénitude, sans compromis. Voilà pourquoi il se consacre à vie au service du Seigneur de la Vie, qui donna sa vie pour que nous vivions, sauvés une bonne fois pour toutes du Règne de la Mort.
La source dont coule ce salut est le sacrifice du Christ. L’autel le manifeste. L’autel est le gardien de la plus noble aspiration du moine, qui, par sa profession, entre librement dans une dynamique pascale. Le moine consent à être conformé au Christ crucifié pour connaître la force de sa résurrection. Dans l’obscur quotidien il choisit de participer, par la patience, à la passion du Saveur.
Le lien entre l’oblation monastique et l’oblation du Calvaire devient plus explicite encore quand Saint Benoît décrit la procédure pour accueillir des oblats présentés par leurs parents au monastère. Dans ces cas, la pétition, écrite par le père de l’oblat, est non seulement mise sur l’autel mais enveloppée, avec les dons de l’offertoire et la main de l’enfant, ‘dans la nappe de l’autel’.
La valeur symbolique de la nappe est prodigieuse. Elle nous met devant les yeux les langes dans lesquels l’Enfant Jésus fut enveloppé à sa naissance; elle représente le linceul où son Corps Sacré fut placé 33 ans plus tard, après la déposition de la Croix; elle nous laisse pressentir le vêtement blanc des élus, conviés à se réjouir éternellement de l’alliance nuptiale de l’Agneau.
Toutes ces dimension de la vie de Christ, de la vie en Christ, marquent l’existence du moine. Il s’associe aux éléments qui deviendront le Corps et le Sang du Christ. Le moine aussi est destiné à la transformation, exposé par grâce à la divinisante lumière qui le fera christophore, un porteur du Christ, une preuve vivante de la grâce de l’incarnation.
‘Nous avons tout quitté’, dit Saint Pierre dans l’évangile. L’affirmation s’applique à la vie monastique. On arrive au monastère avec bien peu de bagage, ayant laissé derrière soi des choses précieuse et chères. Pendant un certain temps la mémoire de ces choses peut inspirer en nous la nostalgie.
Bientôt, pourtant, la réalité du centuple promis se manifeste à nous, nous laissant ébahis. Comparée à la générosité de Dieu, la nôtre n’est qu’une bien pauvre chose. Le moine apprend à se réjouir de sa pauvreté pour que Dieu la comble. Il apprend à se réjouir de sa faiblesse pour que Dieu y déploie sa puissance.
En renouvelant nos voeux, mettons notre espérance en lui; conformons, à nouveau, notre volonté à la sienne.
Avant-hier, à Saint Anselme, le Saint Père a dit à la communauté bénédictine rassemblée: ‘Nous ne pouvons répondre aux exigences de la vocation qu’en plaçant le Christ au centre de notre existence et de notre mission. Il faut partir de l’acte de foi par lequel nous le reconnaissons comme Sauveur pour ensuite traduire cet acte dans la prière, dans l’étude, dans l’engagement d’une vie sainte.’
Il faut viser la sainteté.
La fête de ce jour, la Toussaint Bénédictine, nous rappelle que la vie monastique a été une voie de sanctification pour des multitudes. Une nuée de témoins aimables et crédibles nous entoure. Puissent nos vies radicalement données être dignes de leur exemple, apportant de la joie au Coeur de Dieu et du réconfort à notre monde qui pleure.
Amen.
***
When St Benedict describes monastic profession, he stresses its connection with the altar. The novice asks for admission by means of a petition ‘written in his own hand’, which he puts on the altar. Only then does he intone the verse from Psalm 118 that makes each Benedictine heart quiver:
Uphold me, Lord, according to thy promise, that I may live, and let me not be put to shame in my hope!
His oblation, called forth by the promise of the Lord, has been perceived as a call. The new monks has taken seriously the question posed by Christ in the Prologue to the Holy Rule: Quis est homo qui vult vitam? ‘Who is the man desiring life?’
Of course he desires life — and how!
He wants to live entirely, without compromise. That is why he consecrates his life to the service of the Lord of Life, who gave his life that we might live, saved once for all from the clutches of the Reign of Death.
The source from which this salvation flows is Christ’s sacrifice. The altar makes it manifest. The altar guards the noblest aspirations of the monk who, by profession, freely enters a Paschal dynamic. The monk consents to being conformed to Christ Crucified in order to know the power of his resurrection. In the obscurity of everyday life he chooses to participate by patience in the Passion of Christ.
The link between monastic oblation and the oblation of Calvary becomes more explicit still when St Benedict describes the procedure for receiving oblates presented by their parents to the monastery. In such cases, the petition, written by the oblate’s father, is not only placed on the altar, bur wrapped, along with the offertory gifts and the child’s hand ‘in the altarcloth’.
The symbolic value of the altarcloth is prodigious. It shows forth the swaddling cloths in which the Child Jesus was wrapped at his birth; it represents the shroud in which his Sacred Body was placed 33 years later, on being lifted down from the Cross; and it points forward to the white garment worn by the elect, called to rejoice eternally in the marriage covenant of the Lamb.
All these aspects of Christ’s life, of life in Christ, seal the monk’s existence. He associates himself with the elements that will become the Body and Blood of Christ. He, too, is destined for transformation, exposed to the deifying light that will make him a Christophoros, a ‘Christ-bearer’, a living proof of the grace of the incarnation.
‘We have left everything’, says St Peter in the Gospel. His affirmation applies to monastic life. We arrive at the monastery carrying only a modest knapsack, having left behind many dear and precious things. For a while, remembrance of these things may inspire a little nostalgia.
Soon, though, the reality of the promised hundredfold becomes evident, leaving us amazed. Compared to the generosity of God, ours is but a trifle. The monk learns to rejoice in his poverty, that God might fill it. He learns to rejoice in his weakness, that God may show his strength within it.
As we renew our vows, let us place our hope in him. Let us once more conform our will to his will.
Yesterday, at Sant’Anselmo, the Holy Father told the assembled Benedictine community: ‘We can only correspond to the demands of our vocation if we put Christ at the centre of our existence and of our mission, setting out from the act of faith that lets us recognise in him the Saviour, then translating that act into our prayer, our study, and our endeavour to live a holy life.’
Indeed, we must aim for holiness.
Today’s feast, by which we venerate all Benedictine saints, reminds us that the monastic life has been a path of sanctification for multitudes. A cloud of amiable, credible witnesses surround us. May our radically given lives be worthy of their example, bringing joy to the Heart of God and consolation to our weeping world.
Amen.
Towards Dawn
‘It is often casually said that we live in post-Christian times. I believe that statement to be false. Theologically, the term ‘post-Christian’ makes no sense. Christ is the Alpha and the Omega, and all the letters in between. He carries constitutionally the freshness of morning dew. Christianity is of the dawn. If at times, during given periods, we feel enshrouded by twilight, it is because another day is in the making. It seems to me clear that we find ourselves in such a process of awakening now. If we do want to deal in the currency of ‘pre’ and ‘post’, I think it more apposite to suggest that we stand on the threshold of an age I would call ‘post-secular’. Secularisation has run its course. It is exhausted, void of positive finality. The human being, meanwhile, remains alive with deep aspirations. It is an essential task of the Church to listen to these attentively, with respect, then to orient them towards Christ, who carries the comfort and challenge for which the human heart yearns.’ From my new book, Towards Dawn, just published. You can read more about it here.
Desert Fathers 46
You can find this episode in video format here – a dedicated page – and pick it up in audio wherever you listen to podcasts. On YouTube, the full range of episodes can be found here.
They say about Abba John the Dwarf that one day he told his elder brother: ‘I wish to live without cares, like the angels, who are without cares, not having to work but ceaselessly offering praise to God.’ Then, untying his garment, he went into the desert. After a week he came back to his brother. When he knocked on the door, [his brother] heard him from within. Before opening, he said: ‘Who are you?’ And he said: ‘I am John’. But [his brother] answered, saying: ‘John has become an angel! He no longer dwells among men’. So he besought him and said: ‘It’s me! Open for me!’ But he did not open, leaving him afflicted until the next morning. When eventually he did open, [his brother] said: ‘You see, you are a man after all. If you want to eat, you will once again have to work.’ At that, [John] prostrated himself and said: ‘Forgive me!’
Abba John the Dwarf is a towering presence in the Desert. A pupil of Pambo, a teacher to Arsenius, his authority was held in high regard. It was John, short of stature, who as a novice was given a task destined to become legendary. His elder took a dry stick, plonked it in arid ground, and instructed John to water it daily ‘until it should bear fruit’. The only well was so far away that John, to draw from it, had to leave in the evening and come back the next day, spending all his time, and most of his strength, on an exercise that seemed, to all intents and purposes, not only useless, but a kind of mockery. John, though, persevered. And at ‘the end of three years the wood came to life and bore fruit. Then the elder took some of the fruit and carried it to the church, saying to the brethren, “Take and eat the fruit of obedience”.
Andrei Tarkovsky, the master cinema director, used this story as a framework for his final essential feature, the film Sacrifice released in 1986, the year of his death. He invoked John the Dwarf’s silent, trustful, patiently gratuitous work, a source of paradoxical fecundity, as a corrective to the forceful yet insubstantial impact of ‘Words, words, words’, an exclamation from Hamlet uttered in despair by the intellectual Alexander, the film’s protagonist, when he considers his own trajectory of spouted hot air.
It is touching to find John, an illustrious specimen of monastic virtue, falling prey, at a given moment, to illusion. His intention is noble enough. Taking stock of his life, John considers that too much effort goes into chores. Did he become a monk to work in the kitchen, weave baskets, and attend to practical needs that are often dull? Had he not opted for an angelic life, the transformation of his whole existence into praise? When this thought came to him, he lived with his own brother.
That is, I should think, relevant information. Family relationships are complex. If the Lord let a third of the apostolic college consist of pairs of brothers, it was partly to show how blood-ties must be illumined by a supernatural call. There may, for all we know, have been a latent quarrel in the shared hermitage. Did John sometimes think along the lines ‘Argh! He has always had a way of dodging the dishes!’? Given the fraternal straightforwardness that marks the exchanges after John’s return, a dynamic of this sort may have contributed to tension felt, in any case, by those who embrace a life of spiritual pursuits when they discover the continued exigence of practical life, those times when Benedictines dream of becoming Cistercians, Cistercians hanker after the Charterhouse, and Carthusians dream of a solitary mountain-top with steep access.
John wished to live an angelic life. So off he went, loosening his robe, no more needing, now, the girdle or apron with which he had tied it in for efficient work. He had forgotten one thing, though: angels have no need for supper. Also, they are never quite on their own. Theology shows them to us configured in choirs and hierarchies. We do not know what went through John’s head during seven days and seven nights in isolation under the vast desert sky, with the distant calls of jackals his only perceptible company. In any case, life at home with his brother no longer seemed so awful. Perhaps, he mused, one might after all live a God-pleasing life there, too.
Schadenfreude, spontaneous pleasure in others’ misfortune, especially when they have acted against our advice, is no monastic trait. Among brothers, however, it can find licit expression, and is not always wholly incompatible with charity. John’s brother reinforces the lesson circumstance had taught the ex-hermit. ‘Ah! My angelic fratello of whose company I was not worthy!’ He let John spend a further night out in the cold, just to bring the point home. Then he volunteered a wholly Biblical correction — for already St Paul had written to the Thessalonians, a lot rather given to airy-fairy religion: ‘If any one will not work, let him not eat.’
The end of the story is typical of this genre of literature. Nonetheless it is surprising and beautiful. John does not waste time on explanations. He does not go into some long tirade about how he had felt when he decided to leave, how accumulated frustration had made life a trial. To seek to justify himself even implicitly would have seemed to him both a waste of time and somehow unworthy. He says simply: ‘Forgive me’, and assumes the full weight of his mistake.
Therein lies this story’s principal lesson.
Detail from Fra Angelico’s Last Judgement.
They say about Abba John the Dwarf that one day he told his elder brother: ‘I wish to live without cares, like the angels, who are without cares, not having to work but ceaselessly offering praise to God.’ Then, untying his garment, he went into the desert. After a week he came back to his brother. When he knocked on the door, [his brother] heard him from within. Before opening, he said: ‘Who are you?’ And he said: ‘I am John’. But [his brother] answered, saying: ‘John has become an angel! He no longer dwells among men’. So he besought him and said: ‘It’s me! Open for me!’ But he did not open, leaving him afflicted until the next morning. When eventually he did open, [his brother] said: ‘You see, you are a man after all. If you want to eat, you will once again have to work.’ At that, [John] prostrated himself and said: ‘Forgive me!’
Abba John the Dwarf is a towering presence in the Desert. A pupil of Pambo, a teacher to Arsenius, his authority was held in high regard. It was John, short of stature, who as a novice was given a task destined to become legendary. His elder took a dry stick, plonked it in arid ground, and instructed John to water it daily ‘until it should bear fruit’. The only well was so far away that John, to draw from it, had to leave in the evening and come back the next day, spending all his time, and most of his strength, on an exercise that seemed, to all intents and purposes, not only useless, but a kind of mockery. John, though, persevered. And at ‘the end of three years the wood came to life and bore fruit. Then the elder took some of the fruit and carried it to the church, saying to the brethren, “Take and eat the fruit of obedience”.
Andrei Tarkovsky, the master cinema director, used this story as a framework for his final essential feature, the film Sacrifice released in 1986, the year of his death. He invoked John the Dwarf’s silent, trustful, patiently gratuitous work, a source of paradoxical fecundity, as a corrective to the forceful yet insubstantial impact of ‘Words, words, words’, an exclamation from Hamlet uttered in despair by the intellectual Alexander, the film’s protagonist, when he considers his own trajectory of spouted hot air.
It is touching to find John, an illustrious specimen of monastic virtue, falling prey, at a given moment, to illusion. His intention is noble enough. Taking stock of his life, John considers that too much effort goes into chores. Did he become a monk to work in the kitchen, weave baskets, and attend to practical needs that are often dull? Had he not opted for an angelic life, the transformation of his whole existence into praise? When this thought came to him, he lived with his own brother.
That is, I should think, relevant information. Family relationships are complex. If the Lord let a third of the apostolic college consist of pairs of brothers, it was partly to show how blood-ties must be illumined by a supernatural call. There may, for all we know, have been a latent quarrel in the shared hermitage. Did John sometimes think along the lines ‘Argh! He has always had a way of dodging the dishes!’? Given the fraternal straightforwardness that marks the exchanges after John’s return, a dynamic of this sort may have contributed to tension felt, in any case, by those who embrace a life of spiritual pursuits when they discover the continued exigence of practical life, those times when Benedictines dream of becoming Cistercians, Cistercians hanker after the Charterhouse, and Carthusians dream of a solitary mountain-top with steep access.
John wished to live an angelic life. So off he went, loosening his robe, no more needing, now, the girdle or apron with which he had tied it in for efficient work. He had forgotten one thing, though: angels have no need for supper. Also, they are never quite on their own. Theology shows them to us configured in choirs and hierarchies. We do not know what went through John’s head during seven days and seven nights in isolation under the vast desert sky, with the distant calls of jackals his only perceptible company. In any case, life at home with his brother no longer seemed so awful. Perhaps, he mused, one might after all live a God-pleasing life there, too.
Schadenfreude, spontaneous pleasure in others’ misfortune, especially when they have acted against our advice, is no monastic trait. Among brothers, however, it can find licit expression, and is not always wholly incompatible with charity. John’s brother reinforces the lesson circumstance had taught the ex-hermit. ‘Ah! My angelic fratello of whose company I was not worthy!’ He let John spend a further night out in the cold, just to bring the point home. Then he volunteered a wholly Biblical correction — for already St Paul had written to the Thessalonians, a lot rather given to airy-fairy religion: ‘If any one will not work, let him not eat.’
The end of the story is typical of this genre of literature. Nonetheless it is surprising and beautiful. John does not waste time on explanations. He does not go into some long tirade about how he had felt when he decided to leave, how accumulated frustration had made life a trial. To seek to justify himself even implicitly would have seemed to him both a waste of time and somehow unworthy. He says simply: ‘Forgive me’, and assumes the full weight of his mistake.
Therein lies this story’s principal lesson.
Detail from Fra Angelico’s Last Judgement.