We have our community of saints who have been officially canonized by the Catholic Church. However, we also have those faithful Catholics who have not been canonized, but are amongst the community saints in heaven. Sigrid Undset was a Norwegian author born in 1882. She 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. I read that work last year. It was daunting to read a work of literature almost 1300 pages long. Undset also wrote an acclaimed biography of Catherine of Sienna. She had been raised in a home with little faith, but was originally introduced to Catholicism while living and working in Rome. She explored her Catholic faith in her writing and in the way she lived out her life. She lived as a single mother after the collapse of her marriage, which included raising children she adopted from her husband’s first marriage. Even with those struggles, she donated the money awarded to her in the Nobel prize to two children’s charities. She truly tried to live out Christ’s Gospel message in her life.
In his second letter to the Church in Corinth, St Paul tells us that we do not preach ourselves, but rather our Lord Jesus Christ. Our preaching and our Gospel message are to reflect the Good News of our Lord Jesus Christ, which the Holy Spirit inspires us to do. Indeed, the Holy Spirit inspires us in different ways. I think of St Paul who was called by God to bring the Gospel message to the Gentiles, to enculturate the Gospel message in a way they could understand, at a time when Peter and many of the other Church leaders wanted the Gospel message to be directed entirely to Jews. May we allow the Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us in the way we preach the Gospel and in the way we live out our faith.
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