School of Conversion

Bishop Varden defends marriage:

"Much could be gained, I’d say, from putting together a terce, experience-based, faith-informed compilation of Apophthegmata for families, showing how trials may be handled constructively in the clarifying light of Christ’s commandments and his effective grace. 

When things are tough, we contract our perspective. We see only our present pain, not the path that may extend beyond it.

A principal pastoral concern in such situations is to recall the bigger picture, letting sufferers discover the potentially productive sense of their troubles, which may serve to lessen selfishness and purify love. Marriage, no less than monastic life, is a school of conversion. 

Concerning ‘irregular’ relationships, I find our Catholic communities normally embrace these maturely and well. It can be liberating for persons in such situations to be in a setting where their ‘irregularity’ is acknowledged, not relativised; and where they are yet embraced with Christian friendship, enabled to contribute to the community.

I think of the example of many faithful people I know who, Sunday after Sunday, come up for a blessing at the time of Communion, knowing they cannot accede to the sacrament, yet entrusting themselves to God’s mercy at work in the Church. 

Their example of fidelity does much to build up the Christian community. It testifies to the vital realism of the sacrament and to the virtue of hope. Sacramental exile sustained over time can prepare a joyful homecoming. 

Christ gave us his rigorous commandments to educate us and to liberate us from ourselves, ‘that we might live no longer for ourselves but for him who died and rose again for us’ (Fourth Eucharistic Prayer). His intention is to make us grow in stature into new, divinised life. 

That life must always be the aim we propose to people, not merely human affirmation — though we all need a bit of that as well."