12 June 2023 - Monday of the 10th week in Ordinary Time - Sigrid Undset - Matthew 5:1-12; 2 Corinthians 1:1-7

     As I just returned from my wonderful immersion trip to Rome with the Notre Dame program that is helping us develop projects for the Eucharistic revival here in the United States, we spent the week visiting a lot of different churches and pilgrimage sites throughout Rome.  As I heard the first reading today from the beginning of St Paul’s second letter to the Christian community in Corinth, as he spoke about suffering and encouragement, I thought of our visit to the Basilica of St Paul in Rome, seeing a piece of chain encased above his tomb, representing the time that Paul spent in prison. St Paul suffered greatly in bringing the Gospel message to others, but always found encouragement along the way, always communicating that encouragement to others. Then, in the Beatitudes we hear from Matthew’s Gospel today, I think of the Sistene chapel that we visited on our last day in Rome.  The panel depicting the Beatitudes from Matthew’s Gospel is juxtaposed by a corresponding panel depicting God giving the Law to Moses in the book of Exodus. We are called to live out the spirit of the Beatitudes just as we are called to live out God’s law in our lives. They come out of what the spirit of God is about. 

      We have our community of saints who have been officially canonized by the Catholic Church, but we also have those faithful Catholics who have not been canonized, but are amongst the saints in heaven.  Sigrid Undset, a Norwegian author born in 1882, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1928.  She is one of the youngest authors to receive that award and one of the few female recipients. She  converted to Catholicism in 1924.  Her masterpiece is considered to be the immense medieval historical novel Kristin Larvansdatter, published in three different volumes.  She also wrote one of the most acclaimed biographies of Catherine of Sienna.  Undset had been raised in a home with little faith, but was originally introduced to Catholicism while living and working on her writing in Rome. She found a way to explore her Catholic faith in her writing and in the way she lived out her life. Living as a single mother after the collapse of her marriage, which included raising children she adopted from her husband’s first marriage, she still gave away all the money awarded to her in the Nobel prize to two children’s charities.  She truly tried to live out Christ’s Gospel message and the spirit of the beatitudes in her life.