Erik Varden

The word ‘chastity’, at first sight, may seem intimidating, something to be dismissed out of hand. It is, however, something very different to celibacy. At a time when religion is in decline in the Western world and when it often seems that the senses have run riot, Erik Varden shows that chastity, the single minded direction of the senses, is a loveable quality and one that affects and beautifies humankind. The terms sexuality and wholeness indicate that to be sexual is to exist in a state of incompleteness longing to be restored. Wholeness points to a healing embrace that we desire so greatly. In Biblical language, chastity is a function of simplicity of sight. We are no longer torn apart by our passions and our desires, indeed they may reach their fulfilment. Body and spirit, male and female, order and disorder, passion and death can move from creative tension to a new kind of wholeness. Varden’s text is enriched by a wide range of references to scripture, literature, music, painting and sculpture.

"The richness of [these] reflections will continue for a long time to be for us a source of blessing, of grace, of encounter with Jesus Christ." Pope Leo XIV Alight with Hidden Glory brings together the reflections preached by Bishop Erik Varden to Pope Leo XIV and the Roman Curia at the 2026 Lent retreat. Informed by Scripture and the liturgy, illumined by the insights of Bernard of Clairvaux, a man who helped shape medieval Europe, the book addresses questions of timeless relevance: What is the meaning of freedom? How can we speak well about truth? How do we respond when high ideals are compromised by human betrayal? Erik Varden reveals Lent not as deprivation but as a clarifying pilgrimage toward Christ’s ‘hidden glory’. This contemplative yet urgent work invites readers to walk the exodus path with renewed courage, vigilance, and hope.

"The richness of [these] reflections will continue for a long time to be for us a source of blessing, of grace, of encounter with Jesus Christ." Pope Leo XIV In 2026, Pope Leo XIV asked Bishop Erik Varden to preach the Lent Retreat to the Roman Curia. Alight with Hidden Glory traces a Lenten journey proposed to the head of the Catholic Church and his closest collaborators, but has much to say to all people of good will. Informed by Scripture and the liturgy, illumined by the insights of Bernard of Clairvaux, a man who helped shape medieval Europe, the book addresses questions of timeless relevance: What is the meaning of freedom? How can we speak well about truth? How do we respond when high ideals are compromised by human betrayal? Erik Varden reveals Lent not as deprivation but as a clarifying pilgrimage toward Christ’s ‘hidden glory’. This contemplative yet urgent work invites readers to walk the exodus path with renewed courage, vigilance, and hope.

Are we healed through our wounds or are our wounds themselves healed from some other source? In this 2025 Lent Book, Erik Varden starts by examining the New Testament where it spells out why Christ’s wounds were efficacious for the healing of humankind. He contends that while this theological perspective is fundamental, it often falls short of addressing the emotional and spiritual needs of believers. Bob Dylan once said, tongue in cheek, ‘Pain sure does bring out the best in people.’ The philosopher Donald MacKinnon said, ‘Suffering never ennobled anyone.’ Suffering by nature poses questions people wrestle with today in many fields of life with counsellors, therapists, philosophers, and spiritual directors. But the conundrum remains and in this book Varden sets out to resolve it. Structured to guide readers through a journey of reflection, beginning with the raw reality of suffering and moving toward the possibility of redemption and renewal. Varden employs a contemplative tone, inviting readers to sit with their own experiences of pain and consider how these might be transformed through faith and introspection. His insights are particularly relevant during the Lenten season, a time of reflection on Christ's passion and its implications for believers.

What is our place in nature? Since the Industrial Revolution, humans have has exercised unprecedented dominance over nature, with consequences that are now catching up with us. Many have pointed to Christianity as a culprit. Yet Christianity actually teaches that our relationship to nature should not be one of contempt or disassociation. Rather, according to ancient church tradition, nature is a book to be read, revealing truths about its creator and ours. At a time when many moderns are unsure of what difference, if any, marks us out from other living beings on our planet, and of what our place in the natural world ought to be, what might nature itself tell us about how to live within it? On this theme:Peter Mommsen asks if humans should live by nature’s laws. Colin Boller interviews farmers successfully shifting to regenerative agriculture. Caroline Moore introduces some of Britain’s amazing moths. Daniel Stulac wonders what the Promised Land means in Saskatchewan. Clare Coffey defends dandelions in lawns. Rhys Laverty reports on man’s battle with the sea at the Alderney breakwater. William Thomas Okie explores the old idea that plants reveal their uses. Greta Gaffin looks at our relationship to wolves, and Saint Francis’s. Norann Voll remembers lambing with her father. Tim Maendel finds peace by hunting. Erik Varden asks if the Christian teaching on chastity is unnatural. David McBride translates “The Leper of Abercuawg,” an old Welsh poem. Maureen Swinger watches meteor showers. Plough Quarterly features stories, ideas, and culture for people eager to apply their faith to the challenges we face. Each issue includes in-depth articles, interviews, poetry, book reviews, and art.

A book about the insight, comfort, and direction our troubled age can find in monastic wisdom. Erik Varden published The Shattering of Loneliness in 2018. Now, with the world in the throes of uncertainty and turbulence, he helps us interpret the signs of the times, convinced that the perennial experience of monks and nuns has much to teach us. The principles of monasticism have become attractive to many, awakened as we are to the importance of integrity, the pursuit of peace, asceticism as a path to freedom, hospitality and contemplative seeing. After a deeply personal introduction, Varden invites us to consider what makes a monk. He then takes us on a pilgrimage through the Church’s year, drawing on Scripture, tradition and literary and religious figures of our time. Varden lets the reader discover the generous breadth and depth of a monk’s outlook on life. In so doing he provides inspiration, enjoyment and enlightenment in equal measure.

A journey from where we are to achieving true happiness. Sister Mary David Totah was a nun of the Benedictine contemplative community of St Cecilia’s Abbey on the Isle of Wight. American by birth, she was educated at Loyola University, the University of Virginia and Christ Church, Oxford. After a distinguished teaching career, she entered religious life in 1985. For 22 years until her early death from cancer she guided the young nuns of her abbey with enthusiasm, wisdom and wit. The spirituality to be found in the pages of this book demonstrates to the reader why her influence should have been so great and so deep. Her notes to the novices deal with issues of relevance to a world beyond the cloister: What is the meaning of suffering? How do we cope with living with people who annoy us? How do we relate to a God we cannot see? How do we make the big decisions of life? Sister Mary David’s teaching was both profound and intensely practical, suffused with faith in God’s joy in our work, leisure, community and family life but above all in our view and understanding of ourselves. This book, with an introduction by Abbot Erik Varden OCSO (author of The Shattering of Loneliness) shows us how to realize the Joy that is God.

The experience of loneliness is as universal as hunger or thirst. Because it affects us more intimately, we are less inclined to speak of it. But who has not known its gnawing ache? The fear of loneliness causes anguish. It prompts reckless deeds. To this, every age has borne witness. No voice is more insidious than the one that whispers in our ear: ‘You are irredeemably alone, no light will pierce your darkness.’ The fundamental statement of Christianity is to convict that voice of lying. The Christian condition unfolds within the certainty that ultimate reality, the source of all that is, is a personal reality of communion, no metaphysical abstraction. Men and women, made ‘in the image and likeness’ of God, bear the mark of that original communion stamped on their being. When our souls and bodies cry out for Another, it is not a sign of sickness, but of health. A labour of potential joy is announced. We are reminded of what we have it in us to become. That our labour may be fruitful, Scripture repeatedly exhorts us to ‘remember’. The remembrance enjoined is partly introspective and existential, partly historical, for the God who took flesh to redeem our loneliness leaves traces in history. This book examines six facets of Christian remembrance, complementing biblical exegesis with readings from literature, ancient and modern. It aims to be an essay in theology. At the same time, it proposes a grounded reflection on what it means to be a human being.

Pierre de Berulle (1575-1629) has received scant attention from scholars in the English-speaking world. When he does enter the spotlight, it tends to be as originator of the 'French School of Spirituality'. One could easily fancy him rapt in the hush of an ivory tower, whereas in fact Berulle was constantly on the move, scouring Spain for nuns to export the Teresian Carmel, visiting the Roman Curia as an envoy of Louis XIII, or overseeing projects of ecclesiastical reform all over France. This study demonstrates the fundamental coherence of Berulle's varied accomplishments. Whether in speculative theology or public life, he presupposed the principle of 'servitude'. This notion, repulsive to many, occasioned fierce controversy, yet Berulle remained attached to it. It articulated the core of his theological anthropology as a simultaneous image for the unfreedom of the Old Adam enslaved by sin and for the emancipation of the New Adam living in redemptive bondage to Jesus. Accumulated layers of meaning led to the development of 'servitude' as a principle of action. Thus it migrated from the theological sphere into that of politics. Erik Varden traces the itinerary of this singular metaphor, casting new light on the career of a man who did much to form the sensibility of the grand siecle.