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Catholic writer Sigrid Undset has a strong following among bookish Catholics. She won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928, and her historical-fiction novels continue to be popular today.
Despite her popularity, a lot of people don’t know much about Undset’s own life. She went through a lot as a Catholic convert in Norway, where Catholicism was practically nonexistent at the time.
Undset's impact today
Yet her many fervent prayers for Norwegian Catholicism and religious vocations are beginning to bear fruit. You may have read about Mathias Ledum, the first deacon from her hometown since the Reformation in 1537!
A century after her Nobel Prize, Undset is still having an enormous impact on Norway’s Catholic community. Ledum has a special insight into her life owing to the many connections they share (among other tings, she knew his family and visited their mountain cabin!).
Aleteia asked Ledum to share some favorite stories about Undset that reveal so much about this extraordinary woman and inspire his own ministry today.
Zeal to make Norway Catholic again
Apart from being a literary genius, Undset is one of Norway’s greatest apologists. Ledum explained how she is an ongoing inspiration to the Norwegian Catholic community:
She wanted to remind Norwegians how our country used to be Catholic and that the Catholic faith is nothing foreign to us, but rather that the faith is a gift that we lost and need to retrieve. This zeal to reintroduce Catholicism to Norwegians is something I have tried to imitate through my social media. She also did this through spreading devotion to Norwegian saints and brushed off the dust from pilgrimages to their shrines, Nidaros (a place mentioned in [her novel] Kristin Lavransdatter) and Selja, which are places that have become so dear to me that I help organize pilgrimages there every year!
“Led to the Church through reading Undset”
Undset had priests travel all the way from Oslo to celebrate Mass in her house in Lillehammer before the parish church was built. Today, her writing and her personal example continue to draw Norwegians to the Church:
She really paved the way for a Catholic community to establish itself and her works have led many people to the Catholic faith, even in my own home parish. My First Communion catechist was herself led to the Church through reading Undset, and she ended up being received into the Church on the same date as Undset, on All Saints’ Day, exactly 75 years after her. She is also the one who really urged me to read Undset’s books that describe her own conversion story (The Wild Orchid and The Burning Bush).
Traces of Sigrid Undset's influence are everywhere in Norway’s Catholic community. The diocesan seminary in the area is dedicated to St. Eystein, a medieval archbishop of Nidaros. This patron was chosen because Undset, in her time, founded a prayer group for priestly vocations called St. Eystein’s Association. Ledum said:
She must be happy now to see our seminary experiencing a boom of vocations, and hopefully she rejoices in the fact that her prayers finally, in God’s providence, have led to a vocation from her own home parish. Knowing that she in a way prayed for my vocation is something that moves me deeply and that strengthens the connection between the two of us.
“Generous but never naive”
Prudence and wisdom are key to evangelization, as shown in a little-known story about Undset’s own evangelization efforts. Ledum said:
Being the generous woman that she was, when Undset had Masses celebrated in her house in Lillehammer in the 1920s and onwards, she also served lovely breakfasts with eggs and bacon afterwards. Seemingly this led to a big crowd of people turning up who said they were wondering about converting, and that they would be happy to participate in the breakfast and the constructive conversations at the table. But one day, when there were over 50 people at the table, the housekeeper, Mathea Mortenstuen, put an end to it and said "No, madam, now I don't want to serve all these breakfast Catholics of yours anymore.” and threatened to resign.
That's when it dawned on the Undset herself that some people were there for the wrong reasons. There used to be a poster on the fence outside Bjerkebæk, her home, with a message saying "Catholic Mass. All welcome." A notice was now put up stating that “Breakfast Catholics are not welcome” -- and seemingly the congregation shrank quickly. She was generous and forthcoming, but never naive! Something to imitate for us when we cater to the needs of a world full of people hungry for some real food!
Our prayers unite with those of Ledum, Undset, and all Norwegian Catholics in hopes to “make Scandinavia Catholic again,” as Ledum likes to say. Meanwhile Undset’s example and writings continue to shine a light of faith in Norway, even a century later.
