
CV NEWS FEED // During a homily that he delivered on May 5 to confirmation candidates in the Diocese of Trondheim, Norway, Bishop Erik Varden emphasized that becoming a Christian does not automatically eliminate evil or solve conflicts.
“Christianity isn’t magic,” the Bishop told the candidates. “But the Christian faith, the grace of belonging to Christ through the Church, is the fountain of a strength that may resolve even intransigently locked crises from within.”
According to most recent statistics, Catholics make up just 3.1% of the population in Norway, while the majority, 68.7%, belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Norway.
Bishop Varden is a Trappist monk at Mount Saint Bernard Abbey who spent 10 years at the University of Cambridge. His blog, “Coram Fratribus Intellexi,” is widely popular in both England and Norway.
Reflecting on the themes of love and friendship in Sunday’s readings from Acts of the Apostles and the Gospel of John, Bishop Varden noted that while Christianity does not sanctimoniously wipe away injustice, its fraternal communion goes “beyond chauvinism,” and “invites us to work together for a new world built on justice.”
This feat, he continued, is made possible by God’s “transforming love poured out upon the earth through the incarnation, teaching, sacrifice, passion, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ.”
Citing modern examples of ongoing military occupations in Ukraine and Gaza, the Bishop noted that “In such a situation,” where those living in “a state of continuous humiliation,” under occupation, “no one wants to appear a collaborator, fraternising with the enemy.”
However, he continued, as exemplified in the reading from Acts, in which Peter goes to baptize the Roman centurion, Cornelius, the Church “is called to manifest the task explicit in God’s first call to Abram in Haran: ‘In you all the peoples of the earth will be blessed.’”
Addressing the candidates, the Bishop observed that “by asking to be confirmed, you confess that you want to live by love.” By remaining in Christ’s love, he concluded, “we choose to serve instead of exercising dominion, to be reconciled rather than embittered.”
