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As a child growing up in small-town Norway, a nation where only 3 percent of residents are Catholic, Deacon Mathias Ledum hardly knew anyone who shared his faith.
“It was for sure a bit of a challenge growing up Catholic in my little hometown, as it was literally just me, my sister, my mother, my aunts and cousins, and another Filipino-Norwegian family who were Catholic,” he told Aleteia.
But he knew he lived near the home of Sigrid Undset, one of the most famous Catholic writers of all time and a Nobel Prize winner who is an iconic figure in her native Norway. As he discerned a religious vocation, he slowly realized that their journeys with the Catholic Church were closely connected.
A century after her conversion — and her many prayers for Norwegian vocations — Mathias Ledum has become the first man to be ordained to holy orders from her home parish.
After the National Catholic Register reported on Ledum’s ordination to the diaconate, Aleteia reached out to Ledum to hear his story and what it’s like to be the first priest from Undset’s home parish since her conversion 100 years ago — and since about the year 1537!
“I’m certain 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, led to a vocation from her own home parish,” he said. “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.”
Editor's note: View the PHOTO GALLERY at the end of this article to view images of Deacon Ledum's ordination and learn more about his family's connection to Sigrid Undset.
An unexpected vocation
When looking back on his childhood, Ledum said, “There were few things on the surface that could indicate that I would someday want to be a priest!”
As a teenager he dreamed of becoming a drummer in a metal band or a professional skateboarder, and he had the long hair and ever-present skateboard to go with this ambition—but his faith was always strong.
“I was always at Mass on Sundays, eager to fulfill my duty as an altar server,” he said. “It must have been a very strange sight seeing me walking into the church with the skateboard under my arm and then in another moment, serving at the altar in cassock and cotta!”
Despite typical periods of disinterest and indifference while growing up, the Church and the liturgy always carried him and his faltering faith.
“I became deeply fascinated by the priesthood,” he recalled. He saw something heroic about the way they were present to all sorts of people in all sorts of situations. They priests he knew “were virtuous examples of how to imitate Christ, while still being honest with their fragility and imperfection as any other human being.”
"Contagious joy"
What really sparked his curiosity, however, was the way that they radiated “contagious joy.” While pop culture seemed to encourage money, fame and sex as the recipe for a happy life, he saw that priests had given up all these things but still had “such a deep, genuine joy and peace, and shared this joy with all around them in abundance.”
At the time, Ledum had a girlfriend and saw himself becoming the father of a family with a 9-to-5 job. But he couldn’t stop thinking about the priests’ joy.
Where did they get it from? I also wanted this joy and peace! How could they have this joy when they lived as celibates? They had no wife and children to come home to after a long day of service. I could only see celibacy as something that would make me miserable and lonely, so my discernment to the priesthood ended there… I thought.
The trip that was a turning point
Everything changed when Ledum traveled to Honduras for an exchange project at age 19.
“In the face of the brutal reality that the local community had to live in, I found people with such enduring faith and such a radical hope,” he said. “The clearest witnesses to this were the priests and nuns I met there.”
These men and women sacrificed a comfortable life to serve those in deep poverty and difficult living conditions, and in them he recognized that same joy and peace he had seen in other priests.
The experience convinced him how much more there was to life than chasing material wealth, prestige and superficial pleasure. He also saw how celibacy helped priests and nuns to live selfless service.
It was around this time that he began to ask God if he was called to be a priest, but many more pieces had to fall into place before he was sure of his vocation.
A mother’s secret prayer
After three years of prayerful discernment while completing his university studies and working in a parish, he finally felt ready to contact the diocese for admission to the seminary.
His mother, who raised him Catholic, was very sick at this time. Just before she died, he was able to tell her about his call to a religious vocation.
“When I finally was brave enough to tell her, despite her condition, she expressed the greatest joy,” he said.
After he shared the news of his vocation, something happened that seemed an incredible confirmation of his decision: “The most mind blowing and moving part was finding out from some relatives that my mother secretly prayed with them for me to discern a vocation to the priesthood.”
She never talked to him about becoming a priest, but privately entrusted it to God in her prayers. He marveled, “What a gift!”
A prophetic prediction
As Ledum continues the process toward priestly ordination, he often thinks of Sigrid Undset, whose example and prayers were so formative in his vocation.
He was amazed to find that, in a way, she foretold how his vocation would emerge:
In 1927 she prophetically wrote in an essay that the number of the faithful would diminish in Europe, but also predicted that countries that once were evangelized by the West would send its missionaries from Latin-America, Asia and Africa to bring the faith of our forefathers back to Norway. Given that the first vocation from her home parish is much thanks to my mother who immigrated from the Philippines and brought with her the Catholic faith, we can surely say Undset was onto something!
His feeling of connection to her grew even stronger when he found out that Undset, before she converted, used to come to Mass in his small hometown of Tretten, about 18 miles from her home, as her godmother Mathea Baadstø lived there.
“The place where these Masses were celebrated is now a motel and eatery [called "Tretten kro & motell"] and you can still see pictures of Catholic prelates, priests, and Undset hanging on the wall there, telling the story of a location that possibly was the first place Mass was celebrated in the Gudbrandsdal valley after the Reformation,” he said.
His family connection to Sigrid Undset
A final and especially awe-inspiring connection is that Undset knew his family personally. “She mentions my relatives and our mountain cabin in two of her books, and describes how she enjoyed going there to chit-chat while drinking coffee and eating waffles,” he said.
All of these connections made it especially fitting that, for his diaconate ordination, Ledum wore vestments that Undset herself donated in 1930.
Ledum and his fellow priests and seminarians face an enormous project in evangelizing Norway. In spite of the challenges ahead, he looks toward his coming ministry with the very joy, peace, and fervor that he once noticed in other priests.
“I desire that my ministry becomes a contribution to #MakeScandinaviaCatholicAgain,” he joked with lighthearted enthusiasm. Then he added more seriously, “There is definitely a spiritual awakening happening in the Nordic countries. There are more and more converts every year, and we see an ever-growing community among the youth and young adults reverting to the faith. It is evident that people are seeking something more, something greater than themselves.”
As Ledum continues his studies and progress toward his priestly ordination, our prayers and best wishes will be with him!
