At a Vatican Lenten retreat, Bishop Erik Varden urges believers to rediscover “God’s help” as a sustaining presence, not a divine emergency service.
Newsroom (24/02/2026 Gaudium Press ) Speaking before Pope Leo XIV, cardinals residing in Rome, and the heads of various Dicasteries, Bishop Erik Varden offered his third reflection during the Vatican’s Spiritual Exercises—turning the collective attention toward an ancient, yet ever-relevant theme: “God’s Help.”
Drawing upon the legacy of 17th-century educator Mary Ward, Varden began by recalling her simple but profound counsel to her sisters: “Do your best and God will help.” The phrase, though centuries old, framed his meditation with characteristic clarity. “The belief that God aids His people in their predicaments,” the bishop said, “is fundamental to the Bible’s understanding of faith.” This, he emphasized, distinguishes the living God from the abstract “Unmoved Mover” of philosophy—the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is active, compassionate, and personal.
The Dwelling Within Divine Aid
Bishop Varden turned to scripture, invoking Psalm 90: “He who dwells within the help of the Most High.” He explained, following St. Bernard’s commentary, that God’s help is not a fleeting intervention but a “habitat”—a spiritual environment in which humanity can live, move, and have its being.
“God’s help,” he said, “is not an emergency service to be dialed in a crisis. It is a continual presence, a sustaining force in which the believer dwells.” Such an understanding, Varden noted, calls for a faith that perceives divine closeness even in moments of silence or seeming absence.
The Silence of Heaven and the Lesson of Job
Yet Varden did not shy away from the unsettling reality faced by many believers: the times when cries to heaven appear unanswered. In those moments of divine silence, he pointed to the Book of Job as a guide. Job’s journey, he said, unfolds like a musical composition in three movements—Lament, Menace, and finally, Grace.
Job’s refusal to accept his friends’ logical explanations for suffering becomes, in Varden’s account, a model for perseverance in faith. “Unhelped,” he observed, “Job remains determined to find God present in his affliction, asking heroically, ‘If it is not He, who then is it?’”
Faith Beyond the Illusion of Security
The bishop warned that many modern believers risk treating their faith as a kind of spiritual insurance policy—assuming that living within “God’s help” guarantees a life unscarred by hardship. When calamity strikes, such illusions collapse.
“How,” Varden asked, “do we confront pain that dismantles the protective walls we have built?” He challenged his listeners to consider whether their relationship with God is transactional—or whether it can endure suffering without retreating into despair. “Do we follow Job’s wife’s counsel to ‘curse God and die,’” he asked, “or do we live at greater depth?”
Grace Beyond the Ruins
In his closing reflection, Bishop Varden reassured the gathering that God often works beyond the apparent ruin of human plans. “God can enable a new world to emerge,” he said, “after He has pulled down the walls we thought were the world—walls within which we actually suffocated.”
To live within God’s help, he concluded, is not to cling to certainties but to accept transformation. It is to journey through Lament and Menace toward a life of grace. Echoing both Mary Ward and St. Bernard, Varden framed divine aid not as rescue, but as relationship — a constant habitation that deepens the believer’s faith through both crisis and calm.
- Raju Hasmukh with files from Vatican News
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