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:
St Bernard As a young abbot, Bernard was aflame with ‘a maternal love for all mankind’. He saw what urgent work there was to do in the Church. He eagerly wanted to perform great things. Thereby ‘desire and humility were at odds’. Read More
Utover egne grenser 
I dag innbød Trondheim kommune til innspillmøte om planene for nasjonaljubileet i 2030. Jeg gledet meg over å få bidra. Her er innlegget jeg holdt:
Jeg er blitt bedt om å komme med innspill til kommunens temaplan om 2030 “på vegne Read More
Jeg er blitt bedt om å komme med innspill til kommunens temaplan om 2030 “på vegne Read More
Desert Fathers 34 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.
[Blessed Syncletica said:] Should we Read More
[Blessed Syncletica said:] Should we Read More
Assumption of Our Lady Revelation 11:19a, 12:1-6a, 10ab: A great sign appeared in heaven.
1 Corinthians 15:20-27a: The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
Luke 1:39-56: He has cast down the mighty from their thrones.
The dogma of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Assumption into heaven was defined Read More
1 Corinthians 15:20-27a: The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
Luke 1:39-56: He has cast down the mighty from their thrones.
The dogma of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Assumption into heaven was defined Read More
Where the Wind is Blowing I am grateful for Massimo Faggioli’s thoughtful critique of a recent paper I gave. I invite you to read it. Were I to offer a brief antiphonal response, it would be by way of three remarks. First, a bishop belongs Read More
Burial in Moab Deuteronomy 31.1-8: ‘You shall not cross this Jordan’.
Matthew 18.1-14: Become like little children.
The sight of Moses at a hundred-and-twenty being told he cannot enter the promised land towards which his life-long endeavour has been directed may seem to us unfair.
When Read More
Matthew 18.1-14: Become like little children.
The sight of Moses at a hundred-and-twenty being told he cannot enter the promised land towards which his life-long endeavour has been directed may seem to us unfair.
When Read More
Desert Fathers 33 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.
[Abba Isaiah said:] Of all Read More
[Abba Isaiah said:] Of all Read More
St Bernard
As a young abbot, Bernard was aflame with ‘a maternal love for all mankind’. He saw what urgent work there was to do in the Church. He eagerly wanted to perform great things. Thereby ‘desire and humility were at odds’. Not only did he overestimate his own strength; he asked too much of his brethren. Such was his aura that ‘he frightened away almost all those among whom he was coming to live as abbot’. Instead of feeling drawn to him as to a source of life, they felt repulsed. Bernard, whom grace had preserved from some of the heart’s most devious temptations, was horrified to learn of the squalid inner battles many monks had to fight. He spoke to them harshly, to the point of ‘[seeming] to sow seeds of despair in men already weak’. Like Adam in Eden, he presumed that a graced state of pure divine gift was somehow his by right, entitling him to judge less favoured men. With time, though, transformation came upon him. It was wrought by his brethren’s fidelity.
From Entering the Twofold Mystery
From Entering the Twofold Mystery
Utover egne grenser
I dag innbød Trondheim kommune til innspillmøte om planene for nasjonaljubileet i 2030. Jeg gledet meg over å få bidra. Her er innlegget jeg holdt:
Jeg er blitt bedt om å komme med innspill til kommunens temaplan om 2030 “på vegne av Den katolske kirke”. Det første jeg vil si er da: Katolikker i Trondheim, om de er født på Byåsen eller i Manila, er lokalpatrioter. Ethvert initiativ som fremmer fellesskap, vitalitet og trivsel i byen slutter vi opp om helhjertet.
Men jeg vil fremst sette fokus på kommunens vilje til å styrke vår historiske sans og til å utvikle Trondheim som pilegrimsmål. Det er ikke selvsagt at kommunen skulle tenke i disse baner. Jeg synes det er flott at den gjør det.
Trondheim har ærverdige institusjoner. Katedralskolen har, såvidt jeg vet, vært i kontinuerlig drift i 873 år. At slik sammenheng finnes i en by, skaper stabilitet og trygghet. I en tid hvor så mange prosjekter er døgnfluer, hvor lite bygges for å vare, kan vi være ydmykt stolte av kontinuiteten vi er arvinger til.
Grunnleggelsen av Katedralskolen hang sammen med opprettelsen av Nidaros Erkebispesete. Inntil 1152 hadde Trondheim, kirkerettslig sett, vært underlagt Hamburg-Bremen. Da pavens delegat, Kardinal Breakspear, innsatte en norsk erkebiskop, var Trondheim ikke lenger filial av utenlandsk myndighet; den ble en verdensby i eget navn. Erkebispedømmets territorium var digert. Det omfattet (utover Norge) Færøyene, Orkney-øyene, Grønnland, Island og Man.
Hvor kom Trondheims status fra, den som gjorde av hovedstaden ble lagt her?
Hvorfor ble ikke erkebispesetet lagt til Selja eller en av handelsbyene på Vestlandet?
Det har med Olavsarven å gjøre, selvsagt; derfor er spørsmålet om internasjonal forgrening viktig i forhold til tusenårsminnet vi forbereder.
Olav selv var, som jeg påpekte på Rådhuset i fjor, en verdensmann. Han lar seg ikke fatte kun lokalhistorisk. Utsynet hans var europeisk. Forbildet hans var Karl den Store, intet mindre. Hans hensikt var ikke kun — slik vi kan komme til å tro hvis vi ser Valhalla på Netflix — å mele egen kake.
Olav ville legge grunnlag for en ny sivilisasjon her oppe. Passio Olavi, en beretning som ble til omtrent da Kardinal Breakspear kom innom, hevder at Olav fordrev nordavinden her i traktene “med mildt drag av sønnavind”. Det er nødvendigvis et forenklende uttrykk.
Ikke desto mindre: Olav hadde sett, i England og Frankrike, hvordan et samfunn kunne bygges annerledes, tuftet ikke lenger på den sterkestes rett, men på begreper om rettferd og likhet for loven, et grunnlag som muliggjorde blomstring av humane trekk, kreativitet, åndelig ervervelse.
Slik skrud ønsket han seg både på egne og på rikets vegne.
Olavs livsvei førte ham gjennom flere land og kulturer. I døden nådde han lenger. Olavskulten spredte seg raskt. Jeg stod for et år siden i St Olave’s Church i York, opprettet mindre enn 25 år etter slaget på Stiklestad. Da fantes det alt en Olavskirke i Novgorod. Både nasjonalt og internasjonalt mente folk altså, mens det fantes tidsvitner, at Olav, den gjenstridige, ved livets kamp var blitt et mønster på en ny måte å leve på, at velsignende lys virket ved ham også hinsides døden.
Også denne historien trenger å fortelles. For det var nå helgenen Olav som gjorde at Trondheim ble det byen ble; det var Olavskulten som tiltrakk pilegrimer fra hele Europa, og som trekker dem den dag i dag. Jeg vil pledere for at disse global ringvirkninger får plass i byens feiringsplan. De har preget oss i tidligere tider og kunne, kanskje, ennå prege oss mer enn de gjør. La oss bruke 2030 til utsyn og gjestfri velkomst. Det vil tjene byen langt etter at nasjonaljubileets fanfarer er utblåst.
Et par år etter slaget på Stiklestad, diktet Torarin Lovtunge, som tjente hos Knut den mektige, Olavs fiende, et kvad. Knut, sier han, har kanhende “fått seg sess i Trondheimen”, men riket, det tilhører en annen. For byen, den er Olavs: her bodde han, her ble han gravlagt, her er han nå lagt i skrin “og kvar dag kan folket høyra klokkeklangen over kongen”. Torarin fortsetter: “Knelar skaren for å lækjast der den heilagherren er; blinde bed om syn og stumme bed han gje dei stemme”. Ja, slik kunne altså en islandsk-norsk skald stå og tale danskekongen midt i mot i tusen-og-noen-og-tredve, før noe slags propaganda-apparat ville ha klart å lage en slags “alternativ virkelighet” utav Olav, og mens folk stod omkring som hadde kjent mannen. Mister vi dette aspektet av syne, blir tusenårsfeiringen fattigere, mener jeg.
Trondheims to domkirker
Jeg er blitt bedt om å komme med innspill til kommunens temaplan om 2030 “på vegne av Den katolske kirke”. Det første jeg vil si er da: Katolikker i Trondheim, om de er født på Byåsen eller i Manila, er lokalpatrioter. Ethvert initiativ som fremmer fellesskap, vitalitet og trivsel i byen slutter vi opp om helhjertet.
Men jeg vil fremst sette fokus på kommunens vilje til å styrke vår historiske sans og til å utvikle Trondheim som pilegrimsmål. Det er ikke selvsagt at kommunen skulle tenke i disse baner. Jeg synes det er flott at den gjør det.
Trondheim har ærverdige institusjoner. Katedralskolen har, såvidt jeg vet, vært i kontinuerlig drift i 873 år. At slik sammenheng finnes i en by, skaper stabilitet og trygghet. I en tid hvor så mange prosjekter er døgnfluer, hvor lite bygges for å vare, kan vi være ydmykt stolte av kontinuiteten vi er arvinger til.
Grunnleggelsen av Katedralskolen hang sammen med opprettelsen av Nidaros Erkebispesete. Inntil 1152 hadde Trondheim, kirkerettslig sett, vært underlagt Hamburg-Bremen. Da pavens delegat, Kardinal Breakspear, innsatte en norsk erkebiskop, var Trondheim ikke lenger filial av utenlandsk myndighet; den ble en verdensby i eget navn. Erkebispedømmets territorium var digert. Det omfattet (utover Norge) Færøyene, Orkney-øyene, Grønnland, Island og Man.
Hvor kom Trondheims status fra, den som gjorde av hovedstaden ble lagt her?
Hvorfor ble ikke erkebispesetet lagt til Selja eller en av handelsbyene på Vestlandet?
Det har med Olavsarven å gjøre, selvsagt; derfor er spørsmålet om internasjonal forgrening viktig i forhold til tusenårsminnet vi forbereder.
Olav selv var, som jeg påpekte på Rådhuset i fjor, en verdensmann. Han lar seg ikke fatte kun lokalhistorisk. Utsynet hans var europeisk. Forbildet hans var Karl den Store, intet mindre. Hans hensikt var ikke kun — slik vi kan komme til å tro hvis vi ser Valhalla på Netflix — å mele egen kake.
Olav ville legge grunnlag for en ny sivilisasjon her oppe. Passio Olavi, en beretning som ble til omtrent da Kardinal Breakspear kom innom, hevder at Olav fordrev nordavinden her i traktene “med mildt drag av sønnavind”. Det er nødvendigvis et forenklende uttrykk.
Ikke desto mindre: Olav hadde sett, i England og Frankrike, hvordan et samfunn kunne bygges annerledes, tuftet ikke lenger på den sterkestes rett, men på begreper om rettferd og likhet for loven, et grunnlag som muliggjorde blomstring av humane trekk, kreativitet, åndelig ervervelse.
Slik skrud ønsket han seg både på egne og på rikets vegne.
Olavs livsvei førte ham gjennom flere land og kulturer. I døden nådde han lenger. Olavskulten spredte seg raskt. Jeg stod for et år siden i St Olave’s Church i York, opprettet mindre enn 25 år etter slaget på Stiklestad. Da fantes det alt en Olavskirke i Novgorod. Både nasjonalt og internasjonalt mente folk altså, mens det fantes tidsvitner, at Olav, den gjenstridige, ved livets kamp var blitt et mønster på en ny måte å leve på, at velsignende lys virket ved ham også hinsides døden.
Også denne historien trenger å fortelles. For det var nå helgenen Olav som gjorde at Trondheim ble det byen ble; det var Olavskulten som tiltrakk pilegrimer fra hele Europa, og som trekker dem den dag i dag. Jeg vil pledere for at disse global ringvirkninger får plass i byens feiringsplan. De har preget oss i tidligere tider og kunne, kanskje, ennå prege oss mer enn de gjør. La oss bruke 2030 til utsyn og gjestfri velkomst. Det vil tjene byen langt etter at nasjonaljubileets fanfarer er utblåst.
Et par år etter slaget på Stiklestad, diktet Torarin Lovtunge, som tjente hos Knut den mektige, Olavs fiende, et kvad. Knut, sier han, har kanhende “fått seg sess i Trondheimen”, men riket, det tilhører en annen. For byen, den er Olavs: her bodde han, her ble han gravlagt, her er han nå lagt i skrin “og kvar dag kan folket høyra klokkeklangen over kongen”. Torarin fortsetter: “Knelar skaren for å lækjast der den heilagherren er; blinde bed om syn og stumme bed han gje dei stemme”. Ja, slik kunne altså en islandsk-norsk skald stå og tale danskekongen midt i mot i tusen-og-noen-og-tredve, før noe slags propaganda-apparat ville ha klart å lage en slags “alternativ virkelighet” utav Olav, og mens folk stod omkring som hadde kjent mannen. Mister vi dette aspektet av syne, blir tusenårsfeiringen fattigere, mener jeg.
Trondheims to domkirker
Desert Fathers 34
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.
[Blessed Syncletica said:] Should we be troubled by illness, let us not be downcast if, because of illness or our stricken body, we cannot stand upright praying or sing Psalms aloud. All these things were given us in order to accomplish the purification of our desires. Fasting and sleeping on the floor were prescribed for us on account of [the attractions of] shameful pleasures. If sickness blunts these, the exercises turn out to be superfluous. Why do I say superfluous? Because our destructive tendencies are calmed by sickness as if by a greater, more powerful remedy. This is the really great ascesis: to hold out patiently in sickness and to bring forth hymns of thanksgiving to the Almighty. Is eye-sight taken from us? Let us not be weighed down. We may lose the physical organs of greed, but with our inward eyes we see the glory of the Lord as in a mirror. Are we turning deaf? Let us give thanks that we are made inaccessible, once for all, to vain chatter. Are our hands limp? Our inward hands are no less well prepared for battle against the enemy. Is our body fully in the grip of exhaustion? The inner man will know an increase of good health.
In Butler’s Lives of the Saints, the career of Amma Syncletica is summarised concisely. We are told that she gave herself to God at a young age; that she joined a community where she was in demand as a spiritual mother and guide; then that ‘she foretold her own death, which took place about 400, when she was eighty, after terrible sufferings, born with exemplary patience.’ The oldest source of the story of her life, a text long wrongly attributed to Athanasius, is more specific about Syncletica’s old age. It tells us that she suffered for three and half years from a horrible degenerative disease, possibly some kind of cancer for which there was no cure. It seems worthwhile to mention this aspect of her biography, for it lets us see that when Syncletica spoke of illness, she spoke of what she knew. It is easy, and strangely alluring, to hold forth on the stature of physical pain when one has not known it much, but such discourse sounds hollow. The saying before us, by contrast, is dense.
To be a spiritual champion freely embracing hardships, deprivations, vigils, and fasts engages our noble aspirations. A Psalm of David begins with the cry: ‘Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.’ In St Benedict’s arrangement of the Psalter, laid down in the Rule, this Psalm is sung at vespers on a Friday, the day on which we commemorate Christ’s Passion. A line is drawn between the Lord’s sacrifice and the monk’s ascetic battle, inspiring a powerful sense of purpose and a noble pride in being conscripted for service.
This is a good, formative experience, yet does not spell full configuration to Jesus’s oblation, for our ego remains engaged, channeling our energies profitably while enjoying a degree of satisfaction. It is a joyful thing to pour oneself out freely for love. The chances are, then, that a time will come when we receive a call like the one addressed to Peter on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go’. Will we then follow trustfully, still generous and loving, or will we rebel? The encounter with sickness or imposed constraints may reveal that we were not as advanced in discipleship as we had assumed.
Amma Syncletica stresses the nature of ascetic practice as a means to an end. It is important to keep this distinction in mind. The point of monastic life is not interrupted sleep, scarce eating, or long hours of Psalmody. The point is acquisition through Christ’s grace of the perfect love that casts out fear in purity of heart. The Lord who calls us is free to choose whatever means he deems effective to open our hearts, bodies, and minds to this great gift. An infirmity or injury, a serious diagnosis, that may at first make us feel as if we were struck down by destiny can turn out to be, in fact, a provision made by a kind yet nonetheless cross-shaped providence.
It fills one with reverence to see misfortune received in this way, in a spirit of faith, gently, without bitterness. Each trial has its corresponding grace. We shall find it if we look for it. We shall be fit to look if we learn that for those who love God, all things work together for good. All things. Job’s question, ‘Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?’, does not spring from Stoic toughness; it reminds us that the apparently bad, borne in faith, will lead to some ulterior good.
Amma Syncletica’s point about blindness makes me think of a scene towards the end of Into Great Silence, Philip Gröning’s predominantly silent film from 2005 about La Grande Chartreuse. A blind monk lets us sense his initial discomfiture when he saw his sight was failing. Then he says: ‘Now I often thank God for making me blind; he did it for the good of my soul.’ Physical blindness had sharpened his inward view of God’s essential goodness, making him see that all God allows is somehow helpful, preparing us for that solemn moment when all our life’s attempts to say Yes to God’s designs will come together in the final abandonment of death, which the monk insists should be a joyful surrender.
That is how to live — and die.
Still from the film Into Great Silence.
[Blessed Syncletica said:] Should we be troubled by illness, let us not be downcast if, because of illness or our stricken body, we cannot stand upright praying or sing Psalms aloud. All these things were given us in order to accomplish the purification of our desires. Fasting and sleeping on the floor were prescribed for us on account of [the attractions of] shameful pleasures. If sickness blunts these, the exercises turn out to be superfluous. Why do I say superfluous? Because our destructive tendencies are calmed by sickness as if by a greater, more powerful remedy. This is the really great ascesis: to hold out patiently in sickness and to bring forth hymns of thanksgiving to the Almighty. Is eye-sight taken from us? Let us not be weighed down. We may lose the physical organs of greed, but with our inward eyes we see the glory of the Lord as in a mirror. Are we turning deaf? Let us give thanks that we are made inaccessible, once for all, to vain chatter. Are our hands limp? Our inward hands are no less well prepared for battle against the enemy. Is our body fully in the grip of exhaustion? The inner man will know an increase of good health.
In Butler’s Lives of the Saints, the career of Amma Syncletica is summarised concisely. We are told that she gave herself to God at a young age; that she joined a community where she was in demand as a spiritual mother and guide; then that ‘she foretold her own death, which took place about 400, when she was eighty, after terrible sufferings, born with exemplary patience.’ The oldest source of the story of her life, a text long wrongly attributed to Athanasius, is more specific about Syncletica’s old age. It tells us that she suffered for three and half years from a horrible degenerative disease, possibly some kind of cancer for which there was no cure. It seems worthwhile to mention this aspect of her biography, for it lets us see that when Syncletica spoke of illness, she spoke of what she knew. It is easy, and strangely alluring, to hold forth on the stature of physical pain when one has not known it much, but such discourse sounds hollow. The saying before us, by contrast, is dense.
To be a spiritual champion freely embracing hardships, deprivations, vigils, and fasts engages our noble aspirations. A Psalm of David begins with the cry: ‘Blessed be the Lord, my rock, who trains my hands for war, my fingers for battle.’ In St Benedict’s arrangement of the Psalter, laid down in the Rule, this Psalm is sung at vespers on a Friday, the day on which we commemorate Christ’s Passion. A line is drawn between the Lord’s sacrifice and the monk’s ascetic battle, inspiring a powerful sense of purpose and a noble pride in being conscripted for service.
This is a good, formative experience, yet does not spell full configuration to Jesus’s oblation, for our ego remains engaged, channeling our energies profitably while enjoying a degree of satisfaction. It is a joyful thing to pour oneself out freely for love. The chances are, then, that a time will come when we receive a call like the one addressed to Peter on the shore of the Sea of Tiberias: ‘Truly, truly, I say to you, when you were young, you girded yourself and walked where you would; but when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will gird you and carry you where you do not wish to go’. Will we then follow trustfully, still generous and loving, or will we rebel? The encounter with sickness or imposed constraints may reveal that we were not as advanced in discipleship as we had assumed.
Amma Syncletica stresses the nature of ascetic practice as a means to an end. It is important to keep this distinction in mind. The point of monastic life is not interrupted sleep, scarce eating, or long hours of Psalmody. The point is acquisition through Christ’s grace of the perfect love that casts out fear in purity of heart. The Lord who calls us is free to choose whatever means he deems effective to open our hearts, bodies, and minds to this great gift. An infirmity or injury, a serious diagnosis, that may at first make us feel as if we were struck down by destiny can turn out to be, in fact, a provision made by a kind yet nonetheless cross-shaped providence.
It fills one with reverence to see misfortune received in this way, in a spirit of faith, gently, without bitterness. Each trial has its corresponding grace. We shall find it if we look for it. We shall be fit to look if we learn that for those who love God, all things work together for good. All things. Job’s question, ‘Shall we receive the good at the hand of God, and not receive the bad?’, does not spring from Stoic toughness; it reminds us that the apparently bad, borne in faith, will lead to some ulterior good.
Amma Syncletica’s point about blindness makes me think of a scene towards the end of Into Great Silence, Philip Gröning’s predominantly silent film from 2005 about La Grande Chartreuse. A blind monk lets us sense his initial discomfiture when he saw his sight was failing. Then he says: ‘Now I often thank God for making me blind; he did it for the good of my soul.’ Physical blindness had sharpened his inward view of God’s essential goodness, making him see that all God allows is somehow helpful, preparing us for that solemn moment when all our life’s attempts to say Yes to God’s designs will come together in the final abandonment of death, which the monk insists should be a joyful surrender.
That is how to live — and die.
Still from the film Into Great Silence.
More
Paul Cavill writes: ‘If everyone has one book inside them, then perhaps inside every scholar of the Tudor period is a biography of Thomas More. The temptation is great, so perfectly does his trajectory encapsulate the reception of the Renaissance and the early Reformation in England. More’s death is irresistibly moving, even if we have run out of original ways to recount a Tudor beheading.’ Cavill, who teaches modern history at Cambridge, evokes More’s ‘combination of ribaldry and erudition, his way with dialogue, his pointed jests and merry tales, his sardonic wit, his loathing of pride, his touchiness, his flintiness, his capacity to harden his heart, his adamantine conviction. The chronicler Edward Hall captured a trait when he observed disapprovingly that More “thought nothing to be well spoken except he had ministered some mock in the communication”. But he paid an unintended compliment by dismissing More as either “a foolish wise man or a wise foolish man”, for More was convinced that the difference between wisdom and folly was merely a matter of worldly convention that would ultimately be inverted in heaven.’ A man for all seasons.
Assumption of Our Lady
Revelation 11:19a, 12:1-6a, 10ab: A great sign appeared in heaven.
1 Corinthians 15:20-27a: The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
Luke 1:39-56: He has cast down the mighty from their thrones.
The dogma of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Assumption into heaven was defined in 1950. That doesn’t mean it’s a new dogma. On the contrary: the motif has been present in Christian thought, spirituality, and iconography since Antiquity. Renaissance painters loved to depict it. Many of you will have seen a famous canvas by El Greco, painted for the church of St Dominic in Toledo in 1577. The Virgin, radiant with youth, balances like a tightrope-walker upon a narrow half-moon. Surrounding her feet are amiable putti; above her head more ethereal angelic beings draw her upward.
Mary extends her hands in adoration and divine astonishment. We get the impression she is saying: ‘Really, I don’t know what’s happening, but that’s of no consequence; I entrust myself to it!’ The composition is harmonious and lovely. There’s a marvellous ascendant energy in the painting, and it expresses something profoundly true. At the same time this image is misleading. The mystery appears so extraordinary and elevated that it seems to have no bearing on me and my own little life, so obviously, embarrassingly terre-à-terre.
The great message of the feast, meanwhile, is the opposite. What we admire in Mary’s Assumption into heaven is a reflection of our vocation as Christians, of a reality we hope one day to share.
When Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma, it was as a resounding sursum corda addressed to a world which, five years after the end of World War Two, remained shaken, suffering from still bleeding wounds, fearfully overshadowed by a menacing new world order. The Church, let’s never forget it, is our loving Mother. What she intended to do by means of the definition was to awaken hope. In his discourse in St Peter’s Square, the Holy Father spoke these luminous words:
To the many souls that are disquieted and anguished, bearing the sad legacy of our anxious, turbulent age, to souls that are oppressed but unresigned, that no longer believe in the goodness of life and only accept, as if by constraint, the present moment — to these souls the humble, unknown maiden of Nazareth, now glorious in heaven, will open the most exalted perspectives; she will comfort them and let them see to what a destiny, and to what works, she has been raised, she who, chosen by God to be the incarnate Word’s Mother, docilely received the message of the Lord.
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary can console the ailing human heart, for it concerns us intimately. What the Baptist was for our Lord, the Virgin is for us: a Forerunner. She has gone ahead to clear the path, to make out way straight.
As to how exactly this came about, the Church is discreet. We cannot know how Mary’s entry into heaven took place. The definition of the dogma simply states that ‘the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory’. There is no mention, here, of the moon, the stars, and the legions of angels — those images so dear to art, derived from biblical prophecies like the one we heard as our first reading, in which the Church recognises a foreshadowing of Mary’s heavenly crowning. All this concerns interpretation and décor. The core of the dogma is essential, expressed with austere theological precision: the woman who, by anticipation, tasted the fruit of Christ’s redeeming work, who was preserved from sin and freely received the Word which became flesh in her, was not subjected to the logic of corruption. Death had no claim on her, no power over her. Thus it is natural that she was excused death and entered directly into eternal life, her full humanity intact.
What we contemplate in the Virgin’s Assumption is no eccentric exception, but the prototype of man’s calling as God intended it at first, before the seamless garment was rent by sin, with death as a consequence. The anomaly is death. The norm, according to God’s plan, was immortality. So it is healthy that our soul spontaneously regards death with revulsion, that the thought of death inspires indignation — this is right and just. Death is a scandal. We shouldn’t get used to it. The good news is that the scandal, thanks to Christ’s resurrection from the dead, has lost its sting. Before Christ’s victory, death was like a brick wall that rose at the end of human existence with no way round. Now, in Christ, death stands for a transition. The Lord’s Paschal sacrifice has opened a door in the wall. The door leads into life. The Virgin went through it first. She left it open, so that we can follow in her footsteps.
Of course, she was immaculate, we are not. That’s the way it is; we must accept it realistically. However, our stains have been cleansed in the Blood of the Lamb. We have no need to fear; the reason for our shame has been healed. What we must learn is to live trustfully and patiently, following the Blessed Virgin Mary’s example. Her life is proof that what ‘the humble, unknown maiden of Nazareth’ once sang has been realised: God does cast the mighty from their thrones and exalts the humble. He sends empty away the proudest and most cold-blooded of our foes, death itself. Christ has trampled it underfoot.
The poet Marie Noël, gifted with visions of the height and the depth, once recorded the resonance of Eve’s lament to Adam after the fall. The naïveté of Eve’s words expresses the tragic loss she has suffered, the wound in her soul. She cries out:
‘Oh Adam, Adam! We’ve broken the round dance;
fools that we are, we have ruined God’s thread.
The chain of love has fractured in the middle
and we have fallen on the rock of this world.’
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven provides help at every level. Our foot no longer strikes against the rock; the freeing chain of love has been restored; God’s thread is once again perfect and runs, faster than the pen of any scribe, to complete redemption’s wondrous tapestry; the round dance continues.
Let us dance along, then, we who have recovered our dignity as children of God. Let us lift up our eyes towards the sign that has been made manifest in heaven. Our homeland calls to us. Our Mother awaits us there. Amen.
Detail from Fra Angelico’s Last Judgement.
1 Corinthians 15:20-27a: The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
Luke 1:39-56: He has cast down the mighty from their thrones.
The dogma of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s Assumption into heaven was defined in 1950. That doesn’t mean it’s a new dogma. On the contrary: the motif has been present in Christian thought, spirituality, and iconography since Antiquity. Renaissance painters loved to depict it. Many of you will have seen a famous canvas by El Greco, painted for the church of St Dominic in Toledo in 1577. The Virgin, radiant with youth, balances like a tightrope-walker upon a narrow half-moon. Surrounding her feet are amiable putti; above her head more ethereal angelic beings draw her upward.
Mary extends her hands in adoration and divine astonishment. We get the impression she is saying: ‘Really, I don’t know what’s happening, but that’s of no consequence; I entrust myself to it!’ The composition is harmonious and lovely. There’s a marvellous ascendant energy in the painting, and it expresses something profoundly true. At the same time this image is misleading. The mystery appears so extraordinary and elevated that it seems to have no bearing on me and my own little life, so obviously, embarrassingly terre-à-terre.
The great message of the feast, meanwhile, is the opposite. What we admire in Mary’s Assumption into heaven is a reflection of our vocation as Christians, of a reality we hope one day to share.
When Pope Pius XII proclaimed the dogma, it was as a resounding sursum corda addressed to a world which, five years after the end of World War Two, remained shaken, suffering from still bleeding wounds, fearfully overshadowed by a menacing new world order. The Church, let’s never forget it, is our loving Mother. What she intended to do by means of the definition was to awaken hope. In his discourse in St Peter’s Square, the Holy Father spoke these luminous words:
To the many souls that are disquieted and anguished, bearing the sad legacy of our anxious, turbulent age, to souls that are oppressed but unresigned, that no longer believe in the goodness of life and only accept, as if by constraint, the present moment — to these souls the humble, unknown maiden of Nazareth, now glorious in heaven, will open the most exalted perspectives; she will comfort them and let them see to what a destiny, and to what works, she has been raised, she who, chosen by God to be the incarnate Word’s Mother, docilely received the message of the Lord.
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary can console the ailing human heart, for it concerns us intimately. What the Baptist was for our Lord, the Virgin is for us: a Forerunner. She has gone ahead to clear the path, to make out way straight.
As to how exactly this came about, the Church is discreet. We cannot know how Mary’s entry into heaven took place. The definition of the dogma simply states that ‘the Immaculate Mother of God, the ever Virgin Mary, having completed the course of her earthly life, was assumed body and soul into heavenly glory’. There is no mention, here, of the moon, the stars, and the legions of angels — those images so dear to art, derived from biblical prophecies like the one we heard as our first reading, in which the Church recognises a foreshadowing of Mary’s heavenly crowning. All this concerns interpretation and décor. The core of the dogma is essential, expressed with austere theological precision: the woman who, by anticipation, tasted the fruit of Christ’s redeeming work, who was preserved from sin and freely received the Word which became flesh in her, was not subjected to the logic of corruption. Death had no claim on her, no power over her. Thus it is natural that she was excused death and entered directly into eternal life, her full humanity intact.
What we contemplate in the Virgin’s Assumption is no eccentric exception, but the prototype of man’s calling as God intended it at first, before the seamless garment was rent by sin, with death as a consequence. The anomaly is death. The norm, according to God’s plan, was immortality. So it is healthy that our soul spontaneously regards death with revulsion, that the thought of death inspires indignation — this is right and just. Death is a scandal. We shouldn’t get used to it. The good news is that the scandal, thanks to Christ’s resurrection from the dead, has lost its sting. Before Christ’s victory, death was like a brick wall that rose at the end of human existence with no way round. Now, in Christ, death stands for a transition. The Lord’s Paschal sacrifice has opened a door in the wall. The door leads into life. The Virgin went through it first. She left it open, so that we can follow in her footsteps.
Of course, she was immaculate, we are not. That’s the way it is; we must accept it realistically. However, our stains have been cleansed in the Blood of the Lamb. We have no need to fear; the reason for our shame has been healed. What we must learn is to live trustfully and patiently, following the Blessed Virgin Mary’s example. Her life is proof that what ‘the humble, unknown maiden of Nazareth’ once sang has been realised: God does cast the mighty from their thrones and exalts the humble. He sends empty away the proudest and most cold-blooded of our foes, death itself. Christ has trampled it underfoot.
The poet Marie Noël, gifted with visions of the height and the depth, once recorded the resonance of Eve’s lament to Adam after the fall. The naïveté of Eve’s words expresses the tragic loss she has suffered, the wound in her soul. She cries out:
‘Oh Adam, Adam! We’ve broken the round dance;
fools that we are, we have ruined God’s thread.
The chain of love has fractured in the middle
and we have fallen on the rock of this world.’
The Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary into heaven provides help at every level. Our foot no longer strikes against the rock; the freeing chain of love has been restored; God’s thread is once again perfect and runs, faster than the pen of any scribe, to complete redemption’s wondrous tapestry; the round dance continues.
Let us dance along, then, we who have recovered our dignity as children of God. Let us lift up our eyes towards the sign that has been made manifest in heaven. Our homeland calls to us. Our Mother awaits us there. Amen.
Detail from Fra Angelico’s Last Judgement.
Where the Wind is Blowing
I am grateful for Massimo Faggioli’s thoughtful critique of a recent paper I gave. I invite you to read it. Were I to offer a brief antiphonal response, it would be by way of three remarks. First, a bishop belongs by definition to everyone, not to an elite of whatever colour: his task is to seek the truth and to speak it in charity wherever he is called, in season and out of season. Secondly, my contribution was principally about the Nicene creed, not about Vatican II. A couple of statements about the council did need development. It is great that Dr Faggioli picks them up, notably the complex, important question of hermeneutics. Thirdly, my reference to tediousness concerned not sometimes fraught, earnest processes of dialectic enquiry, but the mud-slinging of which we have seen rather too much.
Regarding the liberal-conservative dichotomy, I love the statement made by Fr Elmar Salmann in his marvellous discourse of farewell to Sant’Anselmo, where for 30 years he taught students to think, and to delight in thinking: ‘Perhaps we might say […] that my way of proceeding has been neither conservative nor liberal but rather classical and liberating [classico e liberante].’ Now that’s a statement apt to air out a stuffy room — and an aspiration I share.
Regarding the liberal-conservative dichotomy, I love the statement made by Fr Elmar Salmann in his marvellous discourse of farewell to Sant’Anselmo, where for 30 years he taught students to think, and to delight in thinking: ‘Perhaps we might say […] that my way of proceeding has been neither conservative nor liberal but rather classical and liberating [classico e liberante].’ Now that’s a statement apt to air out a stuffy room — and an aspiration I share.
Burial in Moab
Deuteronomy 31.1-8: ‘You shall not cross this Jordan’.
Matthew 18.1-14: Become like little children.
The sight of Moses at a hundred-and-twenty being told he cannot enter the promised land towards which his life-long endeavour has been directed may seem to us unfair.
When we have poured ourselves out for a given cause, we wish to see our efforts flourish. If we do not we feel let down. The temptation is great to start moping and to complain. This is natural. Moses shows us what a supernatural response looks like.
There is peculiar warmth and fervour in the last words of this man who, for having once declared himself ‘slow of speech and of tongue’ (Ex 4.10) turned into a terrific talker. His recommendations are emphatic: ‘Be strong, stand firm, have no fear, be not disheartened by anything.’
This is how a man speaks who has learnt to see beyond superficial consolations, who consents to being part of a providential scheme that of its nature transcends the scope of any particular existence, who has interiorised the Psalmist’s prayer: ‘Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory’ (Psalm 115.1).
Moses understands that he, having led the people to the Jordan’s bank, must be eclipsed. The exodus and homecoming have not been his work but the Lord’s. So it must be ‘the Lord […] who will cross over’ at the head of the people while Moses remains on the wilderness-side to be buried in Moab in an unmarked grave: ‘no man knows the place of his burial to this day’ (Dt 34.6).
When we work for God, what matters is to let God work through us while we increasingly find joy in being his tools. The more we get a true sense of who God is, and who we are, the more we shall be grateful, astonished simply to be picked up and used.
Is this not what it means to ‘become like little children’? Little children do not evaluate experience in quantitative terms. They do not calculate, expecting returns on investments. Instead they are content to be whole-heartedly, delightedly invested in the here-and-now, in the game as it unfolds, without considering it some sort of transaction.
To relearn this way of living and relating is quite a proposition. But what freedom it confers, on ourselves and on those round about us.
Moses buried in Moab by the Lord himself, assisted by angels, in a woodcut from the Cologne Bible, 1478-80.
Matthew 18.1-14: Become like little children.
The sight of Moses at a hundred-and-twenty being told he cannot enter the promised land towards which his life-long endeavour has been directed may seem to us unfair.
When we have poured ourselves out for a given cause, we wish to see our efforts flourish. If we do not we feel let down. The temptation is great to start moping and to complain. This is natural. Moses shows us what a supernatural response looks like.
There is peculiar warmth and fervour in the last words of this man who, for having once declared himself ‘slow of speech and of tongue’ (Ex 4.10) turned into a terrific talker. His recommendations are emphatic: ‘Be strong, stand firm, have no fear, be not disheartened by anything.’
This is how a man speaks who has learnt to see beyond superficial consolations, who consents to being part of a providential scheme that of its nature transcends the scope of any particular existence, who has interiorised the Psalmist’s prayer: ‘Not to us, Lord, not to us, but to your name be the glory’ (Psalm 115.1).
Moses understands that he, having led the people to the Jordan’s bank, must be eclipsed. The exodus and homecoming have not been his work but the Lord’s. So it must be ‘the Lord […] who will cross over’ at the head of the people while Moses remains on the wilderness-side to be buried in Moab in an unmarked grave: ‘no man knows the place of his burial to this day’ (Dt 34.6).
When we work for God, what matters is to let God work through us while we increasingly find joy in being his tools. The more we get a true sense of who God is, and who we are, the more we shall be grateful, astonished simply to be picked up and used.
Is this not what it means to ‘become like little children’? Little children do not evaluate experience in quantitative terms. They do not calculate, expecting returns on investments. Instead they are content to be whole-heartedly, delightedly invested in the here-and-now, in the game as it unfolds, without considering it some sort of transaction.
To relearn this way of living and relating is quite a proposition. But what freedom it confers, on ourselves and on those round about us.
Moses buried in Moab by the Lord himself, assisted by angels, in a woodcut from the Cologne Bible, 1478-80.
Desert Fathers 33
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.
[Abba Isaiah said:] Of all battles, xeniteia is the foremost, above all when pursued in solitude. He who flees to another place leaves all that is his behind. What he takes along is perfect faith, hope, and a heart that is steadfast against manifestations of self-will. For [the demons] shut you up in spirals by all sorts of means. They inspire in you fear of temptations, of harsh poverty and illnesses. They submit to you thoughts like this one: ‘If you fall into such things, what will you do, having no one who knows you and is prepared to look after you?’ God’s goodness, meanwhile, puts you to the test in order that your zeal and love of God may be revealed.
Even as it is risky and irresponsible to cite verses of Scripture out of context as if they were absolute, self-sufficient utterances, we must beware of reading the sayings of the Fathers isolatedly. We may of course have recourse to anthologies of the sayings, or put together our own, which is rather what I am doing in this series. What we must guard against is the attempt to simplify a many-faceted tradition.
The very idea of a ‘systematic collection’ of teachings could lead us to assume that a single coherent line is being followed, with all component parts aligned to it. But no; there is immense variety in the Fathers’ approaches, for human experience is various, as are human needs, human vocations. The sayings, we must never forget, are almost always situational. They respond to specific questions arisen in specific circumstances. A counsel appropriate for one monk in a particular temptation might be disastrous for another monk going through something quite different.
The Fathers sought to be ‘all things to all people’. The foundation for their discernment was undisputed: Christ’s Gospel in all its radicality, with not an iota laid aside for convenience. They knew, though, that Christ, supremely free, ‘plays in ten thousand places,/Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his’; and so that the task of a spiritual father or mother is not to impose a single one-size-fits-all model of putative perfection, but to assist the workings of a personal providence. As a result we find instances, in the collection, of apparent contradiction as, now and again, advice is given that seems to fly in the face of principles previously laid down as axiomatic.
Think of Abba Moses’s aphorism, which we have studied: ‘Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.’ The overarching counsel is that of staying put, of not roaming, of growing where one has been planted. It seems like an incontrovertible condition for monastic living.
Yet here we have Abba Isaiah praising xeniteia, a practice by which one relinquishes the claim to have any cell at all. A xenos in Greek is a foreigner. Xenophobia is fear of people who are not locals. Xeniteia is at heart a neutral term indicating the state of living abroad, be it as a trafficked worker or as a wealthy retiree in a comfortable flat on the Costa del Sol. In Christian tradition, though, the word acquired special significance. For the early followers of Christ, xeniteia was a way of imitating faithfully the Son of Man who, unlike the foxes in their holes, the birds of the air in their nests, ‘has nowhere to lay his head’. There was a time when monks and nuns took this imitation to picturesque extremes. Some became itinerant, having no fixed dwelling, mortifying the natural human instinct to call a place home, recalling Paul’s words, ‘Our homeland is in heaven’. A few, known as dendrites, refused even temporary earthly repose, and slept in trees.
To understand Isaiah rightly, we must pay heed to his criteria for xeniteia. He is not speaking of an urge to set out because the place where we happen to be bores or frustrates us, because we do not like the food, or the singing, or our fellows. He would have spurned such an idea and held fast to the principle of Abba Moses. We are not to flee from battles that reveal our weak spots. He envisages rather situations in which a particular place has become too comfortable, in which the monastery, be it austere, has come to constitute a cozy nest made up of material security, familiarity, and predictability, features that may cause us to forget reliance on providence.
The true practitioner of xeniteia is not an adventurer, but a woman or man resolved to put their faith in nothing but God alone, cutting through spirals of paralysing self-will (which the devil knows how to exploit so expertly), wishing only to grow in zeal and love. We see this sound yearning for the unknown typified throughout Church history as noble Christians surrender all into Christ’s hands.
We see it in the Celtic saints who set our from well-known shores in boats unequipped with either rudder or sail to let God lead them as he pleased; and we see it in Thérèse of Lisieux when she dreamt of being moved to a Carmel in some far-off land where she would know no one, that she might be anchored more firmly in Jesus alone. It is up to the Lord whether such a desire is realised; our task is not to get so settled in our present setting, our everyday life made up of well-loved, reassuring presences and things, that we turn deaf to the Bridegroom’s call to go out and meet him. We know neither the day nor the hour; but should always serenely expect that it might be right now.
Saint David of Thessaloniki
[Abba Isaiah said:] Of all battles, xeniteia is the foremost, above all when pursued in solitude. He who flees to another place leaves all that is his behind. What he takes along is perfect faith, hope, and a heart that is steadfast against manifestations of self-will. For [the demons] shut you up in spirals by all sorts of means. They inspire in you fear of temptations, of harsh poverty and illnesses. They submit to you thoughts like this one: ‘If you fall into such things, what will you do, having no one who knows you and is prepared to look after you?’ God’s goodness, meanwhile, puts you to the test in order that your zeal and love of God may be revealed.
Even as it is risky and irresponsible to cite verses of Scripture out of context as if they were absolute, self-sufficient utterances, we must beware of reading the sayings of the Fathers isolatedly. We may of course have recourse to anthologies of the sayings, or put together our own, which is rather what I am doing in this series. What we must guard against is the attempt to simplify a many-faceted tradition.
The very idea of a ‘systematic collection’ of teachings could lead us to assume that a single coherent line is being followed, with all component parts aligned to it. But no; there is immense variety in the Fathers’ approaches, for human experience is various, as are human needs, human vocations. The sayings, we must never forget, are almost always situational. They respond to specific questions arisen in specific circumstances. A counsel appropriate for one monk in a particular temptation might be disastrous for another monk going through something quite different.
The Fathers sought to be ‘all things to all people’. The foundation for their discernment was undisputed: Christ’s Gospel in all its radicality, with not an iota laid aside for convenience. They knew, though, that Christ, supremely free, ‘plays in ten thousand places,/Lovely in limbs, and lovely in eyes not his’; and so that the task of a spiritual father or mother is not to impose a single one-size-fits-all model of putative perfection, but to assist the workings of a personal providence. As a result we find instances, in the collection, of apparent contradiction as, now and again, advice is given that seems to fly in the face of principles previously laid down as axiomatic.
Think of Abba Moses’s aphorism, which we have studied: ‘Go, sit in your cell, and your cell will teach you everything.’ The overarching counsel is that of staying put, of not roaming, of growing where one has been planted. It seems like an incontrovertible condition for monastic living.
Yet here we have Abba Isaiah praising xeniteia, a practice by which one relinquishes the claim to have any cell at all. A xenos in Greek is a foreigner. Xenophobia is fear of people who are not locals. Xeniteia is at heart a neutral term indicating the state of living abroad, be it as a trafficked worker or as a wealthy retiree in a comfortable flat on the Costa del Sol. In Christian tradition, though, the word acquired special significance. For the early followers of Christ, xeniteia was a way of imitating faithfully the Son of Man who, unlike the foxes in their holes, the birds of the air in their nests, ‘has nowhere to lay his head’. There was a time when monks and nuns took this imitation to picturesque extremes. Some became itinerant, having no fixed dwelling, mortifying the natural human instinct to call a place home, recalling Paul’s words, ‘Our homeland is in heaven’. A few, known as dendrites, refused even temporary earthly repose, and slept in trees.
To understand Isaiah rightly, we must pay heed to his criteria for xeniteia. He is not speaking of an urge to set out because the place where we happen to be bores or frustrates us, because we do not like the food, or the singing, or our fellows. He would have spurned such an idea and held fast to the principle of Abba Moses. We are not to flee from battles that reveal our weak spots. He envisages rather situations in which a particular place has become too comfortable, in which the monastery, be it austere, has come to constitute a cozy nest made up of material security, familiarity, and predictability, features that may cause us to forget reliance on providence.
The true practitioner of xeniteia is not an adventurer, but a woman or man resolved to put their faith in nothing but God alone, cutting through spirals of paralysing self-will (which the devil knows how to exploit so expertly), wishing only to grow in zeal and love. We see this sound yearning for the unknown typified throughout Church history as noble Christians surrender all into Christ’s hands.
We see it in the Celtic saints who set our from well-known shores in boats unequipped with either rudder or sail to let God lead them as he pleased; and we see it in Thérèse of Lisieux when she dreamt of being moved to a Carmel in some far-off land where she would know no one, that she might be anchored more firmly in Jesus alone. It is up to the Lord whether such a desire is realised; our task is not to get so settled in our present setting, our everyday life made up of well-loved, reassuring presences and things, that we turn deaf to the Bridegroom’s call to go out and meet him. We know neither the day nor the hour; but should always serenely expect that it might be right now.
Saint David of Thessaloniki