SAINT FOR NORWAY?

 

As we are dealing with some Catholic writers this month, the news just came from the Diocese of Oslo, Norway, that the cause for the canonization of SIGRID UNDSET will take place soon. Her novel  Kristin Lavransdatter  is considered to be one of the best of the 20^th century.  (See Blogs:  Oct 23 & Oct 26, 2023)

She is recognized by the Church as an example of how intellectual brilliance, personal conversion and perseverance through suffering can become a path toward holiness.

Most are aware of her writings, but few know of her inner life, her care of the poor and defense of human dignity. She courageously defended the Catholic Church, in a country which was mainly Lutheran, and through her writing fought against Hitler and Nazism.

After Germany occupied Norway during the Second World War, she fled to the United States, where she spoke forcefully in support of the Norwegian resistance, returning home after the war.  

The American Pulitzer Prize  winner, Willa Cather, met Sigrid months after the Norwegian novelist’s son was killed in action in 1940. Willa describes Sigrid’s “heroic calm” and calls her the greatest and most truthful woman she has ever known. 

“Every time I see her,” writes Willa of her visits while Sigrid was living at the Hotel Margaret in Brooklyn, “she brings a large peace and relaxation. 

She is just all a great woman should be - and on a giant scale... there is in the woman a kind of heroic calm and warmth that rises above all the cruel tragedies and loss of fortune that the last three years have brought. She simply surmounts everything that has been wrecked about her and stands large and calm; she who has lost everything seems still to possess everything, and the small pleasures can still make her rather cold eyes glow with marvelous pleasure. She combines in herself the nature of an artist, a peasant, and a scholar. She is cut on a larger pattern than any woman I have ever known, and it rests me just to sit and look at the strength that stood unshaken through so much."

Bishop Fredrik Hansen of Oslo said her life demonstrates that sanctity is not reserved for the extraordinary few, but remains the universal calling of every baptized Christian.

It has been a very long time since there was a Norwegian saint. St Magnus Erlendsson, who died in 1117, and St Olaf Haraldson, who was canonized in 1164, were the last saints.