Natural JoyEvelyn Waugh wrote of his father Arthur that his ‘most obvious characteristic was theatricality, but I did not become conscious of this until it was pointed out to me at the age of sixteen by the first adult visitor I Read More
Not Getting WorseWe often assume that if only life were easier – if we weren’t subject to this worry or that constraint, if we were more prosperous, better established – we ourselves would be better, more virtuous. I gulped a little, therefore, Read More
King Harald V RIPThe tradition of the Church gives us a prayer to recite when death is near and our own words fail us. The prayer, from the ninth century, begins like this: ‘Go forth, Christian soul, from this world, in the name of God the Father almighty, who created you; in the name of Jesus Christ, Son of the living God, who suffered for you; in the name of the Holy Spirit, who was poured forth on you’. The prayer reminds us that physical death is a passage from life to Life. Today our beloved king, Harald V, has made this passage. With reverence and gratitude we commend him to God’s loving mercy. All of us must make this passage one day. That is our life’s only certainty. Still, the passing of a king affects us uniquely. We suddenly feel orphaned, surrounded by a resounding absence. In an exemplary manner, King Harald embodied the nation. We were aware that he saw us, knew us, valued us. We knew his care, were embraced by the warmth he exuded. He gave us a magnificent example of dedication. He was so entirely our king, given to his people. No ego seemed to stand in the way. That brought him near to us in a wholly beneficent way. We, the Catholics of Norway, pray devotedly for him. We pray for Her Majesty the Queen and for the royal family. Not least we pray for King Håkon VIII, that God may grant him wisdom and choice blessings. The old acclamation, ‘The King is dead, long live the King!’, stirs us today. The monarchy represents a stable axis in society. It stands for self-evident continuity. In our uncertain times, that is comforting. King Harald has, with Queen Sonja, brought a unique kind of stability to Norway. Ever dignified, the king has been a natural point of reference in both grief and gladness. He has spoken wisely to us, with a kind, quirky humour we shall miss. We will now stand loyally by King Håkon, that the heritage may continue, nurtured by the trust that for ages has bound the people and its sovereign together in this country. The deathbed prayer culminates in an expression of firm, luminous hope: ‘May your place today be in peace, your dwelling with God.’ Trusting in the intercession of St Olav, Perpetual King of Norway, we bless the memory of King Harald V and pray that he may rest in peace. We thank God for everything he gave us through him. Requiescat in pace! +Erik Varden ocso Bishop av Trondheim and Apostolic Administrator of Tromsø Portrait from NRK
Natural JoyEvelyn Waugh wrote of his father Arthur that his ‘most obvious characteristic was theatricality, but I did not become conscious of this until it was pointed out to me at the age of sixteen by the first adult visitor I introduced into the house. This friend said to me: “Charming, entirely charming, and acting all the time.” When I consulted her, my mother confirmed this judgement. […] I must not be thought to impute insincerity to him. It was simply that his nature required every thought and emotion to have immediate histrionic expression. […] He read aloud with precision of tone, authority and variety that I have heard excelled only by Sir John Gielgud. […] In these recitations of English prose and verse the incomparable variety of English vocabulary, the cadences and rhythms of the language, saturated my young mind, so that I never thought of English Literature as a school subject, as matter for analysis and historical arrangement, but as a source of natural joy. It was a legacy that has not depreciated.’
Year of JubileePress Statement Released on Wednesday 26 August 2026 Catholic Bishops Rejoice in Audience Accorded Church of Norway Bishop Fredrik Hansen and Bishop Erik Varden are delighted that the bishops of the Lutheran church of Norway will encounter Pope Leo XIV in an audience today. ‘We have excellent ecumenical relations with the church of Norway and are pleased that the bishops have an opportunity to meet Pope Leo XIV. We look forward to the millennium of Norway’s conversion and hope this jubilee will give occasion for broad ecumenical collaboration’, says Bishop Fredrik Hansen. ‘It is on account of St Olav that we prepare to keep an important millennium in 2030 and 2031’, stresses Bishop Erik Varden. ‘St Olav is at the heart of the celebration. 29 July 2030 will mark the millennium of his martyr’s death at Stiklestad; 3 August 2031 will mark the millennium of his exhumation, when his body was found incorrupt. On that day he was proclaimed a saint not just for Norway, but for all of Christendom.’ That is why the Norwegian bishops have petitioned Pope Leo to proclaim a special Year of Jubilee for the Catholic Church in Norway lasting from the feast of St Olav, 29 July, in 2030 until the feast of the translation of St Olav’s relics, 3 August, in 2031. A Year of Jubilee is for Catholics a year of special grace that highlights the importance of pilgrimage, prayer, conversion, and reconciliation. ‘Such a Year of Jubilee will give both the Norwegian faithful and pilgrims come from abroad a unique chance to follow in the footsteps of St Olav and to renew their faith in gratitude for the Christian patrimony with which Norway has been blessed, their eyes set on the Church’s present and future task in this country’, says Bishop Hansen. Bishop Varden adds: ‘As the name suggests, the Year of Jubilee will be not least an occasion to rejoice in what St Olav’s Christian legacy has done to enrich our country’s culture and self-understanding, our code of justice and our European connectedness.’ *** Katolske biskoper gleder seg over paveaudiens for Den norske kirke Biskop Fredrik Hansen og biskop Erik Varden gleder seg over at biskopene i Den norske kirke i dag skal møte pave Leo XIV i audiens. – Vi har svært gode økumeniske relasjoner med Den norske kirke, og gleder oss over at biskopene får møte pave Leo XIV. Vi ser særlig frem mot kristningsjubileet og håper jubileet kan bli en anledning til bredt økumenisk samarbeid, sier biskop Fredrik Hansen. – Hellig Olav er årsaken til at Norge feirer kristningsjubileet i 2030 og 2031. Han står i sentrum for feiringen. 29. juli 2030 er det tusen år siden hans martyrdød på Stiklestad; 3. august 2031 er det tusen år siden hans kropp ble funnet intakt og han ble anerkjent som helgen, ikke kun for Norge, men for Verdenskirken, fremhever biskop Erik Varden. De katolske biskopene i Norge har derfor bedt pave Leo XIV om å utrope et særskilt jubelår for Den katolske kirke i Norge, fra olsok 29. juli 2030 til vesleolsok 3. august 2031. Et jubelår er i Den katolske kirke en særlig nådetid, med vekt på pilegrimsferd, bønn, omvendelse og forsoning. – Et slikt jubelår vil gi troende i Norge og pilegrimer utenfra en særlig anledning til å følge i Hellig Olavs spor og fornye troen, i takknemlighet for den kristne arven Norge har mottatt, og med blikket rettet mot Kirkens oppdrag i Norge i dag og i fremtiden, sier biskop Fredrik Hansen. – Ikke minst er jubelåret, som navnet tilsier, en oppfordring til å glede oss over alt den kristne Olavsarven har bidratt med for å berike vårt lands kultur og selvforståelse, vårt rettssystem og vår europeiske forankring, sier biskop Erik Varden. An imitation of the twelfth-century shrine made to house St Olav’s relics, to which pilgrims flocked from all over Europe. Photograph: Wikipedia.
Not Getting WorseWe often assume that if only life were easier – if we weren’t subject to this worry or that constraint, if we were more prosperous, better established – we ourselves would be better, more virtuous. I gulped a little, therefore, while praying the Office of Readings this morning, suddenly noticing what Saint Louis of France, who died on this day in 1270, while Henry III was king of England, actually wrote to his son and heir in his spiritual testament: ‘If the Lord has permitted you to have some trial, bear it willingly and with gratitude, considering that it has happened for your good and that perhaps you well deserved it. If the Lord bestows upon you any kind of prosperity, thank him humbly and see that you become no worse for it, either through vain pride or anything else, because you ought not to oppose God or offend him in the matter of his gifts.’ It’s a helpful counsel. It takes purity of mind and heart to sail in fair winds without being puffed up. Saint Louis also told his son: ‘Sooner be tormented by martyrdom before you allow yourself to commit a mortal sin.’ https://coramfratribus.com/wp-content/uploads/2026/08/Saint-Louis-Spiritual-Testament.mp3
21 Sunday AIsaiah 22:19-23: I place the key of the house of David on his shoulder. Rm 11:33-36: Who could ever know the mind of the Lord? Mt 16:13-20: Who do people say the Son of Man is? Isaiah’s oracle against Shebna, the palace-master, is spoken on a building-site Shebna is running. All his relatives have been drummed together there to admire the work in progress. Before their amazed eyes a mausoleum for Shebna is rising, a monument to his greatness unto the ages. Oh Shebna! Greatest of civil servants! What a contrast between this public display of vanity, probably funded by public money, and the prophet’s disdainful reproach. He tells Shebna that he is in fact doing a lousy job and will be out of it: ‘The Lord’, he says, ‘will whirl you round and round, and throw you like a ball into a wide land.’ The Hebrew word translated as ‘ball’ can mean ‘a dumpling’, which is rather a good image, I think. Shebna thinks himself fittingly commemorated in marble. In reality he is but a lump of gooey dough to be flicked out of the kitchen window into the savannah. How different our perception of self can be from our true significance and station! We don’t know whether Shebna was just a vain fool or whether he actively undermined the country: We’re at the time, remember, of Assyrian expansion. Highly-placed folk in Jerusalem were helping the super-power out. In retrospect, it doesn’t matter too much. For Isaiah’s oracle is not just an order of dismissal. It is a brief of investiture. Shebna’s dismissal makes room for someone to replace him. His marks of high office — robe, sash, and palace key — are taken from him to be given to another, Eliakim son of Hilkiah, whose faithful service will be glorious. So far, so good. We have before us a chapter of ancient history that chimes in with our sense of just retribution: out with the selfish show-off; in with the substitute who will be a father to the people of Judah. This passage, however, came to haunt people’s imagination on account of a singular image. Isaiah’s majestic promise, ‘He shall open, and no one shall shut; he shall shut, and no one shall open’, seemed too immense to be locked in an 8th-century dynastic struggle. So Eliakim, with time, came to be seen as a type of the ultimate champion of justice, the Messiah, who at the end of time will show God’s paternal care for his people, welcoming the faithful remnant into the eternal mansion, then locking the door securely behind them. In the Apocalypse, Isaiah’s description of Eliakim’s task is applied word for word to Jesus Christ, ‘the Holy One and True’. From the Bible it made its way into the Church’s liturgy. We repeat it each year before Christmas, when we call on ‘the Key of David’ to ‘set the captive free’. Yet today the Church presents us with a different association. The Old Testament passage about Eliakim’s key sagely introduces the Gospel in which the power of the keys is passed to Peter. We’ve heard that story hundreds of times. There is no need to speak of its importance for Catholic ecclesiology. All of that we can surely take for granted. The two simple points I’d like to make arise, rather, out of what Eliakim’s key might tell us about Peter’s. The first thing to notice is this: in neither text is the key identified with its bearer. Eliakim is a high official, but an official all the same. The key is entrusted to him by the master of the House of David: the legitimate king of Judah, heir to the Davidic line. Peter, too, is identified as a King’s servant, only in his case the realm at stake is infinitely vaster. We are dealing with the kingdom of heaven on which we have meditated for several Sundays running, the kingdom that’s like a sown field, a dragnet, a pearl of great price. Peter wields the key to this kingdom, but as trusted servant, not as lord. The ownership of the key belongs eternally to the kingdom’s rightful heir, the Son of David who is also the Son of God. This important distinction shows us both the dignity and limit of Peter’s authority. We should never confuse the power of the keys with him who is the Key, Jesus Christ. Another point to ponder arises out of the account of Eliakim’s ministry. His predecessor Shebna, as we’ve seen, put on airs. He used his position of privilege to magnify himself. Eliakim, by contrast, will show himself a father to Jerusalem. In the logic of the Davidic kingdom, and even more so in the logic of the kingdom of heaven, this is how authority is wielded: through paternal solicitude that fosters life and flourishing for others. The successors of Peter have for centuries shown their awareness of this by adopting the formal title ‘servant of the servants of God’. When Peter in a moment of distraction presumes that his position lets him dictate Christ’s course of action, he is rebuked in the strongest possible terms. In this we may find rules of conduct valid for all of us. We all share responsibility for the administration of the Father’s house. Together we attend to the needs of those who seek refuge in it. Whatever might be the particular key lent to us, let us use it humbly and charitably. Shebna’s example reminds us that self-importance is noxious. The point of prominence is more effective service. If we perform ours well, we shall have the joy of sitting at table with him who is our model, who came not to be served but to serve. In the sacred banquet we are about to share, he gives us a pledge of his fidelity and a foretaste of gifts to come. A late fourteenth-century illumination showing Christ giving the keys to Peter
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Today we celebrate St. Augustine, bishop and doctor of the Church St Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, where he lived with a community until his death. His theological influence has been most significant in the Church, especially on the understanding of Read More 3 Likes
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