Þorláksmessa

Advent Vespers, Week Four

Evening Reading: Hebrews 12:1-6

Homily:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

St Thorlak is remembered as something of a dour fellow. There are saints you might enjoy having a beer with; Thorlak is not one of them.

His story reflects his times. Iceland was converted to Christianity by democratic election at the Althing, or Icelandic parliament, of AD 1000. It was made clear, however, that no one would be bothered about whatever religious practice persisted in the home. Iceland would officially belong to Christ, but if your pagan grandma wanted to set up a little shrine to Thor by the hearth, no one was going to complain.

In a land of harsh extremes and stark beauty, strict moralism was a luxury few could afford. Church organization tended to shoot from the hip. Any chieftain with sufficient funds to build a church could do so, and hire his own private priest. Clergy largely ignored any episcopal insistence on clerical celibacy. They tended to marry, or at least to have common-law wives, and this was perfectly acceptable to the populace so long as it did not cause “public scandal”. The last Roman Catholic bishop of Iceland, for example, died in 1550 fighting alongside two of the many sons and daughters whom he’d fathered.

It was a Bishop of Rome, Pope Gregory VII, who first pushed for moral and ecclesial reforms in the Eleventh Century. He wanted a Church that was morally upright, politically independent, and strongly unified around a central authority. In other words, priests were to shape up and not live beholden to any chieftain or king.

Thorlak Thorhallsson was born in 1133 to an aristocratic Icelandic family that had fallen on hard times, grown destitute, and broken up. He was consecrated a deacon by age 15, and a priest by 18. As a parish pastor, he was very conscientious in his duties, and used his salary to support his mother and sisters. Thorlak studied abroad in Paris and Lincoln, where he absorbed, and wholeheartedly endorsed, the Gregorian Reforms. He wanted an independent and strictly ethical Church. Upon his return to Iceland, he rejected the marriage proposal of a wealthy widow and instead founded an austere Augustinian monastery.

His earnestness caught the attention of the Archbishop in Nidaros, whose authority extended from Norway out to Iceland, Greenland, the Faroes and Orkney. Though Thorlak protested, the Archbishop pulled him from the monastery and consecrated him as one of only two bishops in Iceland. As so often happens in Church history, men of great faith, who want only to be left alone in prayer and study, instead find themselves sent out into the world to preach the Gospel of truth and love to a reluctant populace.

This was no easy job. Iceland was founded by people who bucked central authority and traditional family arrangements. Much to his exasperation, Thorlak’s own sister had shacked up with the uncrowned king of Iceland, and neither he nor she showed any intention of breaking off their unconventional relationship. It should be noted, however, that the child of this union—Thorlak’s illegitimate nephew—grew close to his strict-yet-loving uncle, and eventually succeeded him as bishop. And he was a bishop you would definitely enjoy having a beer with.

Thorlak was a turbulent priest, a thorn in the side, a troubler of Israel. And for this he was respected even by his foes. He was an uncompromising man amidst an uncompromising wilderness, and hundreds of stories of miracles abound all around him, both during his life and after his death. The Icelanders revered him as a saint for some 800 years before Rome officially canonized him in 1984. Ironically, his devotees have never seemed much troubled to acknowledge the centralized authority Thorlak himself so vigorously endorsed.

His feast day, Þorláksmessa, on December 23rd, marks the time of final Christmas preparations, and the traditional Thorlak’s Day meal consists of fermented skate, chased with boiled potatoes and a shot of Brennivin—a liquor so vile that Icelanders call it Black Death. A fittingly severe meal for a severe saint!

So why is it that he is so fondly remembered and revered, by a populace that never cared to live up to his example? Because, truth be told, whenever things are falling apart, someone has to hold them together. St Thorlak was a pillar of stability in a lax and careless age, recognized as holy and honest even by those who flouted his exhortations. He gave himself to God when he was 15 years old, and never looked back. And his example, and his intercession, have inspired Christians to live holier and truer lives for the last thousand years.

We live in turbulent and trying times. The darkness of winter, the stress of the holidays, can wear us down and lead us to question why we toil so to fulfill our duties and oaths and obligations. The world doesn’t seem to care. Indeed, the world often seems to have gone mad! Sometimes it feels like we’re dangling off a precipice, barely holding on by our fingernails. Why be true to a world gone false?

At times like these, we look to men such as Thorlak, to saints who weathered hard ages in humble and steadfast service. Like them, we have people who depend on us, strangers and loved ones alike, to be their pillars of stability and hope. And drawing from the same deep wells of catholic faith that enabled God’s saints to be faithful in a faithless time, we too shall be enabled to persevere—so that someday, when we are called before the righteousness of Christ’s Judgment Seat, we too will be able to say:

“By the grace of God, I held.”

In the Name of the Father and of the +Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

You can read more on Iceland’s patron saint in The Saga of Bishop Thorlak, and learn all about his delightfully bon vivant nephew in Ivory Vikings.