The Shattering of Loneliness: On Christian Remembrance

by Erik Varden

Overview

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.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781472953285
Publisher:	Bloomsbury USA
Publication date:	11/20/2018
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Erik Varden is a monk and bishop. Norwegian by birth, he was, before entering Mount Saint Bernard Abbey, a Fellow of St John's College, Cambridge. He has published several translations and scholarly monographs and is much in demand as a preacher, spiritual director and lecturer. In 2019 Pope Francis appointed him to the see of Trondheim. He is the author of The Shattering of Loneliness (Bloomsbury Continuum, 2018).

Table of Contents

List of illustrations ix

Introduction 1

1 Remember you are dust 13

2 Remember you were a slave in Egypt 35

3 Remember Lot's wife 59

4 Do this in memory of me 85

5 The Counsellor will call everything to mind 107

6 Beware lest you forget the Lord 131

Afterword: In Memoriam 159

Notes on the Text and on Sources 165

Editorial Reviews

The Shattering of Loneliness is an extraordinary book: not too long but richly dense; profound in its insights and scholarship yet eminently readable; and though clearly written by a monk happy to be a monk, it has as much relevance to the ordinary Christian as to the Trappist monks in the author's care.” —Catholic Herald

“Intimately personal but never self-indulgent, it is at once arresting and challenging, uplifting and reassuring, and profoundly moving … The richness of this remarkable book is impossible to convey adequately in so few words. No reader will remain unchanged.” —Tablet

“Absorbing and fascinating ... It is a book to be read more than once.” —Methodist Recorder

“Generates deep and unexpected insights [...] Like the memory of a meaningful conversation long after you've forgotten what was said. It is unforgettable.” —Catholic World Report

“The Shattering of Loneliness is a book of extraordinary importance. It is, with prophetic clarity, aware of the depravity, the weakness and the glory of the human condition.” —Times Literary Supplement

“A work that intelligently renews the vocabulary and the very genre of spiritual literature.” —La Croix

“This is one of the finest books that I have read in recent years and one which should, in time, become a classic. It acknowledges and articulates the essential contribution of the Christian tradition as inspirer of remembrance for a generation that is beginning to forget.” —The Furrow

“Varden's work is the fruit from a tree for the healing of the nations, from a monk who has his feet firmly and incarnationally on the ground.” —Lutheran Theological Journal

“I've read thousands of books. This one has stunned me.” —Mary Margaret Funk, spiritual writer and author of 'The Practice of the Spiritual Life'

“This wide-reading reviewer hasn't for ages read such a completely satisfying book […], written in poetic, resonant language.” —Bonnie Thurston, New Testament scholar and author

From the Publisher