Bishop Varden Warns Curia on Final Day of Vatican Lent Retreat "point toward Christ...without compromising doctrine"
Lenten Retreat Summary: Bishop Varden on Communicating Hope
In his final reflection for the Spiritual Exercises at the Vatican—attended by Pope Leo XIV and the Roman Curia—Bishop Erik Varden, OCSO, explored the theme "To Communicate Hope." Below is a revised summary of his insights.
The Historical Context of Hope
Bishop Varden began by recalling the opening of the Second Vatican Council in 1962. At that time, Pope Saint John XXIII stated the Council’s "greatest concern" was "that the sacred deposit of Christian doctrine should be guarded and taught more efficaciously."
That doctrine embraces the whole of man, composed of body and soul. It bids us, pilgrims on this earth, tend towards our heavenly home.’
Hope vs. Optimism
Less than a week after the pope’s discourse, the Cuban Missile Crisis broke out. Man looked set to blow himself out of the water of his earthly sojourn, with no thought of an eschatological goal. With the wounds of World War II still raw, our race was generating ghastly new prospects of self-destruction.A climate of precariousness surrounded the Council; at the same time this period was charged with fervent hopes for a new society founded on human rights, fair trade, and technical advances. The Council wished to speak into the time’s ‘anxious questions about the current trend of the world, the place and role of man in the universe, the meaning of man’s […] strivings, the ultimate destiny of reality and of humanity’. Not only did it address the questions. It pointed towards their resolution, announcing that Christ, crucified and risen, incarnates the future of mankind. The Council set the Church the task of enunciating Christ in such a way that he will appear clearly and compellingly as the answer to the present time’s most urgent issues without compromising for a moment the sacred deposit of doctrine.
We may ask ourselves whether in the sixty years that have passed since the closure of the Council confidence has always and everywhere been kept in the power and efficacy of this deposit. Each Christian generation is bound to consider itself in view of the contrast Paul draws to the Ephesians between the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ made manifest in unity of faith and knowledge, in mature manhood, and a childish state of being tossed to and fro, carried about with winds of doctrine, drawn, now by cunning, now by crafty wiles, now by facile optimism.
Christ calls us to communicate hope to the world. To have Christian hope is not necessarily to be an optimist. A Christian forswears wishful thinking, making a determined option for the real. Demagogues promise that things will get better. They claim demiurgical power to change communities within an electoral term, distracting the masses from felt disappointments by hand-outs of bread, tickets to circuses, and defamations of adversaries. How different are Christ’s words. He tells us, ‘The poor you will always have with you.’ He affirms that nation will rise against nation. Persecutions will come. A man’s enemies will be members of his own household. There is no lame resignation in these statements. The Lord obliges us, his disciples, to labour without respite for a new, healthy humanity formed by charity, in justice. He tells us to ‘cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons’. We are to enact the beatitudes, making the glory hidden within them shine. But as we go about this we are reminded: ‘Without me you can do nothing.’
Christ is the light of the nations, Lumen Gentium. He alone, doing the Father’s will, acting in the Spirit, can renew the face of the earth. In him we put our trust, not in passing stratagems.
He can act through us if we consent to being patient. Lent shows us that God, suffering the wound of his philanthropy, is at his most active in his Passion. The hope he entrusts to us is not hope in a finally modernised, digitised, sanitised Vale of Tears. Our hope is in a new heaven, a new earth, in the resurrection of the dead.
The time in which we live is hungry to hear this hope proclaimed. We have considered some signs surrounding us: new religious awareness among the young; the return of the category of truth to public discourse; a search for roots. Global institutions and alliances are breaking down. We are exposed to strategic, ecological, and ideological peril. It is natural that people of sense and good will should ask what, in the midst of such uncertainty, stands a chance of lasting. Tired of building their lives on sand, they seek solid rock. Meanwhile, their heart is disquieted. The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council affirmed, in Gaudium et spes, that the best aspirations and darkest dread of the present time must raise an echo in the hearts of Christians. For a Christian is no stranger to anything that is ‘genuinely human’
The "Wound" of the Modern Generation
Reflecting on the current cultural "Weltschmerz," the Bishop cited a 2025 concert in Madrid by American singer Gracie Abrams. He noted a "piercing sadness" in her lyrics, specifically the line: "I never said it, but I know that I can’t picture anything past 25."
"Thousands attended that concert... It is uncanny to hear it picked up... by a packed young crowd: ‘I just wanted you to know, I was never good at coping. […] I really hope that I survive this.’"
Varden observed that while boys may lean toward a "dour recognition of life’s hardship," the consciousness of being "a wound to close" permeates the youth of today.
The Crucifix: A Mirror of Reality
Varden argued that the Church’s focus on the wounded body of Christ is the only authentic response to a world that either "fetishises" or "airbrushes" suffering.
The Identity Fallacy: Using wounds as markers of identity can lead to "perversely self-satisfied despair."
The Transactional Fallacy: A society that views the "unproductive" as "freak occurrences" leads to the horrors of eugenics and euthanasia.
By contrast, the Cross affirms the "non-finality of wounds." Varden noted that in the Resurrection, Christ’s wounds were not erased but "rendered glorious."
A Call to Clarity
The Bishop critiqued a "symbolic capitalism" where facts are treated as "artefacts" and rhetoric is designed to "befuddle." He insisted that humanity craves the Church’s "clear thinking" and "Christ-centred hope."
He concluded with the words of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who taught that life’s trials are birth pangs:
"My brothers, glory hides in tribulation now; eternity hides in the present moment."
Varden ended by reminding the faithful that even in the "night" of our current age, we must keep our eyes on Jesus, whose "kindly light, also when hidden, is full of gladness."
* Bishop Erik Varden, Bishop of Trondheim, Norway, was asked to preach the 2026 Spiritual Exercises for Pope Leo XIV, Cardinals residing in Rome, and the heads of Dicasteries of the Roman Curia, which runs from Sunday, February 22, to Friday, February 27. Here is the link to his website.
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