Lenten Retreat: Bishop Varden reflects on 'De consideratione'
By Bishop Erik Varden, OCSO*
St. Bernard wrote a treatise On Consideration. It enjoyed the widest circulation of any of his works. This may seem odd, for the text is in essence a letter addressed to a specific person in a singular predicament. Bernard wrote it for a confrère of his, an Italian monk named Bernardo dei Paganelli who, already a priest of the church of Pisa, had entered Clairvaux in 1138.
In 1145 Paganelli became Pope Eugene III.
While contemplation deals with truths already known, consideration, in Bernard’s vocabulary, seeks truth in contingent human affairs, where it can be difficult to notice. It can be defined as ‘thought searching for truth, or the searching of a mind to discover truth.’
Considering the problems of the Church, Bernard offers no institutional remedies. He rather advises Eugene to surround himself with good people. The better the Church’s central offices are run, the greater the benefit will be for the Church worldwide.
The qualities Bernard asks him to look out for and cultivate are immortal. Needed are collaborators ‘of proven sanctity, ready obedience, and quiet patience; […] catholic in faith, faithful in service; inclined towards peace, and desirous of unity; […] farsighted in counsel, […] industrious in organization […], modest in speech’.
Such people ‘habitually devote themselves to prayer, and in every undertaking place more confidence in it than in their own industry or labor. Their arrival is peaceful, their departure unassuming.’
In so far as the Church operates in these terms will she reflect the organization of the angels’ hierarchies. Whoever considers her then will see her principal mission: that of giving God glory.
To consider earthly necessities rightly, we must seek, through them, what is above. This is not, Bernard tells Eugene, somehow to ‘go into exile: to consider in this way is to return to one’s homeland’.
Bernard asks himself: What is God? Omnipotent will, benevolent virtue, unchangeable reason. God is ‘supreme blessedness’ who, for love, wishes to share his divinity with us. He has created us to desire him. He broadens us to receive him, justifies us to merit him. He leads us in justice, molds us in benevolence, enlightens us with knowledge, preserves us unto immortality.
Whatever else prelates have to think about, and it is much, they must consider these things first. Thereby their consideration of practical matters, too, will be illumined, ordered, blessed.
A prelate must, in Bernard’s view, be principled, holy, and austere. But he should also be the Bridegroom’s friend, delighting in sharing that friendship with others.
Augustine liked to describe episcopal office as a sarcina, a legionary’s bundle. It is a raw image conceived by one who knew the desolation and fear of campaigns in the North African desert. He goes on, though, to improvise on his own set theme. Though the pastoral burden does have a fearful aspect, it is fearful only if we fail to notice who puts the burden on our shoulders. For it is no less a participation in the sweet yoke of Christ, who lets us discover that the cross-bar entrusted to us is luminous and light, that a share in it is joyful.
Augustine once wrote: ‘Perduc sarcinam tuam quia levis est si diligis gravis si odisti‘, that is: ‘Bear your own load to the end. If you love it, it will be light. If you hate it, it will be heavy.’
‘Yours, good Jesus’, wrote Bernard in his Life of St Malachy the Irishman, ‘is the deposit which has been entrusted to us; yours the treasure hidden in our possession, to be given back at the time you shall ordain for its reclaiming.’
* 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 Dicastery's 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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