Archive, Letters
Pope Francis RIP
To the faithful of the Prelatures of Trondheim and Tromsø,
Christ is risen!
Our Holy Father Pope Francis is dead. He fell asleep in the Lord at 7.45 a.m. this morning, Easter Monday. We commend him to God’s sweet mercy, thankful for his ministry and testimony.
Any death, any person’s passage from time into eternity, fills us with reverence. The pasch of a pope does so in a remarkable way. The pope, bishop of Rome, is Peter’s successor: ‘the perpetual and visible principle and foundation of unity of both the bishops and of the faithful’, as we read in the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium (n. 23).
We are conscious of the immense load the pope has carried. We know what he, through illness, has suffered. May he now hear the longed-for summons: ‘Good and faithful servant, enter into the joy of your master!’ (Matthew 25.21).
We feel bereft. We have lost a beloved father. Together, at one in the Church, we express our grief — and at the same time our unshakeable confidence in God’s uninterrupted agency through his holy Church. God calls us, as always, to conversion: to love in truth and to speak the truth in love.
At a cardinal moment in the unfolding of the Gospel, one day near Caesarea Philippi, the Lord said to Simon, the apostle who, when he began to realise who Jesus is, exclaimed, ‘Lord, depart from me, for I am a sinful man’ (Luke 5.8): ‘You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my Church, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it’ (Matthew 16.18).
These words are written in enormous letters inside the cupola of the Basilica of St Peter. From the cross that crowns the cupola a vertical axis descends through the papal altar in the church down to the apostle’s grave: a divine promise rooted in the historical call addressed to a man of flesh and blood passes through our time incarnate in a singularly graced, singularly burdened person. Pope Francis has occupied this position with fortitude for twelve year, a link in a long chain.
Christ is Lord of the Church. He will guide her onward, also through times of uncertainty. His word is eternal. It carries through storms as well as through calm weather.
The fact that our Holy Father was called to God at Easter, while we exultantly celebrate the Lord’s resurrection, is beautiful and moving. We see the darkness of the night illumined by the Paschal flame. Pope Francis spent his life proclaiming the historical, ethical, and metaphysical impact of the resurrection. He taught us to see, and to interpret, life’s circumstances in the light of Christ’s victory over death. This we will faithfully do.
The Missal gives us the following prayer to be recited in Masses offered on the death of a pope:
Divinæ tuæ communionis refecti sacramentis, quæsumus, Domine, ut famulus tuus Papa Franciscus, quem Ecclesiæ tuæ visibile voluisti fundamentum unitatis in terris, beatitudini gregis tui feliciter aggregetur.
That is to say:
Lord, we, who have been restored by sacraments of divine communion with you, pray that your servant, Pope Francis, whom you wished to be the visible foundation of your Church’s unity on earth, may be united in gladness to your flock’s heavenly beatitude.
To restore God’s people by divine communion through the Church’s oneness so that it may be perfected in eternal bliss: this is a 
pope’s great mission.
It is ours as well.
The Church exhorts us: ‘all the faithful of Christ are invited to strive for the holiness and perfection of their own state. Indeed they have an obligation so to strive. Let all then have care that they guide aright their own deepest sentiments of soul’ (Lumen Gentium, 42). With this august commandment before us, we pray for our dear Pope Francis.
I invite you to attend the Requiem Masses that, in the days ahead, will be offered in our parishes and communities. Remember Pope Francis in your prayers. I myself will fervently pray a prayer monks sing for their beloved dead:
Come towards him, saints of God, come to meet him, angels of the Lord: Receive his soul and present it before the face of the Almighty. May Christ who called you receive you, and may the angels lead you to Abraham’s bosom.
Lord, let perpetual light shine on our pope Francis! May he rest in peace! Amen.
+fr Erik Varden OCSO
Bishop of Trondheim and Apostolic Administrator of Tromsø
Subvenite Sancti Dei, occurrite Angeli Domini: Suscipientes animam eius, offerentes eam in conspectu Altissimi. Suscipiat te Christus qui vocavit te, et in sinum Abrahae Angeli deducant te.