Even monks need a retreat. This year, the monks of Gethsemani took a community retreat Jan. 14 through Jan. 21. The retreat house was closed, and the bakery and fudge shop were shut down so that the monks could spend more time in prayer and contemplation.  Bishop Erik Varden, OCSO served as retreat master.

Erik Varden is a monk and bishop, born in Norway in 1974. In 2002, after 10 years at the University of Cambridge, he joined Mount Saint Bernard Abbey in England. He was appointed superior administrator there in 2013 and became abbot in 2015. From 2011 to 2013, he was also a professor of Syriac language, monastic history and Christian anthropology at the Pontifical Atheneum of St. Anselm in Rome. Pope Francis named him bishop of Trondheim in 2019.

Each day at Gethsemani, Bishop Varden led a morning and evening conference.  During the opening session on Saturday, Jan. 15, he referred to the Genesis account of Isaac redigging the wells dug by his father Abraham. In the story, the Philistines had filled the wells in. Bishop Varden invited the monks to view the retreat as a time of “redigging our own wells.” “We have our own internal Philistines,” Varden noted.

The opening chapters of Genesis, it turned out, were the focus of each day’s conference – a “return to the essentials,” he called it. “To live fully, we must remember where we came from and where we are going…and Christ is found in each – the Alpha and the Omega,” Varden said.

Many of the brothers commented on the impressive variety of sources Bishop Varden cited in his conferences – desert fathers, Syriac liturgy, poets, scientists, Holocaust survivors and philosophers to name a few. One monk, who had been in vows nearly 60 years, said he was usually familiar with the readings that retreat masters would use. “I found myself challenged this year,” he said, emphasizing he meant that in a positive way.

In addition to the conferences, he also preached the homily at the community Mass. His homily for Jan. 21, the memorial of St. Agnes, can be found on his website.

The monks are grateful to Bishop Varden and will continue to keep him in prayer.