Grace Finds Us Where We Are, Then Leads Us Further
In the middle of July, the monks of St. Benedict’s Abbey were delighted to host Bishop Erik Varden as their retreat master for this year’s annual retreat. Varden is a highly sought-after retreat master. The monks had to book him several years in advance. Perhaps the only person who could get on Varden’s calendar immediately is the Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV, who asked Varden to give this year’s Lenten retreat, now published as Alight with Hidden Glory (Bloomsbury, 2026)
A convert to Catholicism in 1993, Bishop Varden is presently the Bishop of Trondheim in his home country of Norway, the first native Norwegian to hold this episcopate in several decades (his five predecessors were all German). To the great benefit of English eyes and ears, Varden has spent most of his adult life in the United Kingdom. He undertook undergraduate studies in Wales before completing advanced degrees, including his doctorate, at the University of Cambridge. Afterwards, he entered Mount Saint Bernard Abbey in 2002, a Trappist monastery in Leicester England. He later served as abbot from 2015 until being appointed Bishop of Trondheim in 2019 by Pope Francis. This means his celebrated books like The Shattering of Loneliness (Bloomsbury, 2018) and Entering the Twofold Mystery (Bloomsbury, 2022) as well as his many talks are available in English. His popular blog “Coram Fratibus” is also available in English.
It doesn’t take decades in a monastery to understand why Varden is such a beloved speaker and writer. Conversant with film, poetry, and literature, as well as several academic disciplines, he is able to relate the Catholic faith with numerous analogies and illustrations. But his wide learning in other disciplines is matched by a deep reading of the texts and traditions of Christianity. This breadth and depth of learning allow him to re-narrate our faith with a certain freshness and profundity.
Varden’s expression of Catholicism is simple, but not simplistic. An elegant yet accessible writer, while not forsaking the wonder or mysteriousness of Christianity, Varden nevertheless presents it as ordinary, as just the sanest account of our world and our lives. Beyond this, his work is defined by hopefulness. He does not scold or scorn the world, justifying Catholicism by enumerating the errors of culture. He does not rebuke young Catholics for their passion nor old Catholics for their complacency. He believes the Church is entering a new springtime, that society however broken will only find new reasons to turn to Christ, and that we have good reason to look forward.
What follows is an abbreviated version of an interview I conducted with Bishop Varden on the morning of July 17th in one of the humble parlors of the Abbey guesthouse.
WHAT’S SO GREAT ABOUT ST. ANTHONY THE GREAT?
You chose the account of St. Anthony of Egypt (251-356CE) by St. Athanasius of Alexandria (c. 296-373CE) as the text for the retreat. What is it about St. Anthony that you think is important for the monks here at St. Benedict’s?
Well, the Life of St. Anthony by St. Athanasius is in some ways the foundational text of monasticism. It was commissioned by a group of zealous Christians in the south of France who had heard about St. Anthony and wanted to become monks.
Athanasius says in his introduction that his text is meant to give a sufficient impression of St. Anthony. In other words, if you make this text your own, if you interiorize Anthony’s example and his teaching, and if you realize such in your own lives, then you’ll stand a chance of being a monk. And that, really, is the theme of any monastic retreat.
What was St. Athanasius’ interest in St. Anthony?
His work on St. Anthony was fully a part of his theological endeavor. Athanasius, of course, was the great advocate of the Council of Nicaea (325CE). If we think of the Nicene definition of Jesus’ complete consubstantiality with the Father as “pure theology,” then the Life of St. Anthony is what we could call “applied theology.” It exemplifies how grace actually works in a human life. Precisely because Christ is fully God, the grace God gives to us in Christ is nothing less than divinization – a conforming of human life to the eternal life of God.
DIVINIZATION AND HUMANIZATION
Modernity is defined by, among other things, humanism. Sometimes that humanism is predicated on a rejection of this notion of divinization. There is a fear that genuine human experiences are overridden or invalidated by any appeal to the supernatural or divine. In order to give human experience its due, it is thought we must deny God or at least reconceive His presence as entirely internal to human experience. As we live in a day more characterized by humanization than divinization, what do you say to those who think this theology of grace as divinization is wildly outdated, if not inhumane?
Athanasius shows through Anthony’s life that the way to a divinized existence in the wake of the incarnation of the Word presupposes our profound humanization. God became human to unite us to Himself and Jesus Christ is not only true God but also true man. And so we have to become truly human, we have to be grounded in our human nature. The promise and potential of grace in our lives does not come at the expense of our humanity. The process of being divinized is in fact the process of discovering that our true human nature is designed to be fulfilled in God. Divinization is also true humanization.