Pope Leo XIV and the Roman Curia participated on February 26 in two new meditations of the Lenten spiritual exercises held in the Pauline Chapel of the Apostolic Palace. According to Vatican News, the reflections were led by the Cistercian monk Monsignor Erik Varden, who centered his interventions on the figure of the angels and the spiritual evolution of St. Bernard of Clairvaux.
The meditations are part of the annual retreat that the Pontiff and the members of the Curia undertake in preparation for Easter, a practice consolidated in the spiritual life of the Vatican.
The angels as custodians and mediators
In the morning session, dedicated to the theme “The Angels of God”, the preacher started from the evangelical episode of Christ’s temptations in the desert, when the devil quotes Psalm 90 to urge Jesus to throw himself from the pinnacle of the Temple.
Varden emphasized that divine intervention does not respond to human whims and that only God can call man to an act of radical trust. He recalled that the Christian tradition describes angels as guardians of holiness and mediators of divine providence, citing an ancient prayer to the guardian angel that asks to be “enlightened, guarded, ruled, and governed”.
Drawing inspiration from St. Bernard, he explained that the believer is called to imitate the angelic movement: to descend to show mercy to one’s neighbor and, at the same time, to elevate one’s own desires toward the supreme truth. In that line, he affirmed that even natural human desires find their fulfillment in God and must be oriented toward Him.
The meditation also included a reference to St. John Henry Newman, who described the priestly ministry as an “angelic” task. The preacher extended this image to the educational field, emphasizing that the personal encounter proper to the priest or teacher cannot be replaced by digital tools. “An angelic encounter is always personal”, he noted, and cannot be replaced by a download or a chatbot.
From idealist to realist: the maturation of St. Bernard
In the evening meditation, Varden delved into the figure of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, presenting him as a man of great ideals who, through experience and trials, matured toward a deeper spiritual realism.
As he explained, the Cistercian founder understood that the ultimate reality of human history is a cry that begs for mercy. That discovery transformed his vision and led him to center every interpretation of life on the person of Jesus Christ.
The preacher highlighted the centrality of the name of Jesus in Bernardine spirituality, citing texts in which the saint describes Christ as “honey in the mouth, music in the ear, and joy in the heart”. In Jesus —he affirmed— God reveals his plan of salvation and offers a mercy capable of renewing man and the world.
Varden emphasized that, for St. Bernard, Christ is not only an object of devotion, but a hermeneutical principle: situations, people, and conflicts must be read in His light. This Christian realism, he added, allowed the abbot of Clairvaux to become not only a reformer and influential preacher, but a doctor and saint.
The spiritual exercises will continue in the coming days in the Pauline Chapel, as part of the spiritual preparation itinerary of the Roman Curia during the Lenten season.