From: richarra@gmail.com   
      
   On Contrition of Heart (IV)   
      
   Consider yourself unworthy of God's comfort, but rather deserving of   
   much suffering. When a man is perfectly contrite, this present world   
   becomes grievous and bitter to him. A good man always finds cause for   
   grief and tears; for whether he considers himself or his neighbours,   
   he knows that no man lives without trouble in this life. And the more   
   strictly he examines himself, the more cause he finds for sorrow. Our   
   sins and vices are grounds for rightful sorrow and contrition of   
   heart; for they have so strong a hold on us that we are seldom able to   
   contemplate heavenly things.   
   --Thomas à Kempis --Imitation of Christ Bk 1, Ch 21   
      
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   January 26th - St. Eystein, Archbishop of Nidaros   
      
   (D. 1188)   
   IN the year 1152 an English cardinal, Nicholas Breakspeare (afterwards   
   to be pope as Adrian IV), visited Norway as legate of the Holy See,   
   and gave a new organization to the Church in that country, consisting   
   of a metropolitan see at Nidaros (Trondhjem) with ten bishoprics.  *   
   Among them was Suderoyene, i.e. the western isles of Scotland and Man,   
   which remained suifragan to Trondhjem till the 14th century the name   
   survives In the “Sodor and Man” diocese of the Anglican Church to-day.   
      
   Other sees were In the northern islands, Greenland and Iceland. Five   
   years later the second archbishop of Nidaros was appointed, in the   
   person of Eystein Erlandsson, chaplain to King Inge, an appointment   
   which violated the regulations for canonical appointments laid down by   
   Cardinal Breakspeare. But it proved to be the life work of the new   
   archbishop to maintain the Church’s right of conducting its affairs   
   without interference “by the rich and great”, and finally to bring the   
   Norwegian church into the general pattern of the west European   
   Christendom of that day.   
      
   After his appointment Eystein made his way to Rome, but it is not   
   known exactly when or where he was consecrated bishop by Pope   
   Alexander III and received the pallium.   
      
     In any case he did not get back home till late in 1161, and then he   
   came as papal legate a latere. One of his first iderests was to finish   
   the enlargement of the cathedral, Christ Church, of Nidaros, and some   
   of his building still remains. In the account which he wrote of St.   
   Olaf, St. Eystein relates his remarkably speedy recovery from an   
   accident sustained by him when a scaffolding on this building   
   collapsed he attributes it to Olaf’s intercession.   
      
     After the death of King Haakon II, Jarl Erling Skakke wanted to get   
   his own eight-year-old son Magnus recognized as king of Norway. And in   
   1164, probably in return for concessions touching ecclesiastical   
   revenue, Archbishop Eystein anointed and crowned the child at Bergen,   
   the first royal coronation in Norwegian history. Relations between the   
   archbishop and the king’s father continued to be close, and St.   
   Eystein was able to get accepted a code of laws some of which were of   
   great importance for the discipline and good order of the Church. But   
   one matter which he does not seem to have tackled, at any rate   
   directly, was clerical celibacy, which was not observed in the   
   Scandinavian churches at that time (cf. the contemporary St. Thorlac   
   in Iceland). It was perhaps for this reason that St. Eystein founded   
   communities of Augustinian canons regular, to set an example to the   
   parochial clergy.   
      
     Most of St. Eystein’s activities as they have come down to us are   
   matters of the general history of his country rather than his own   
   life, and were always directed towards the free action of the   
   spiritual power among a unified people. This brought him into   
   collision with Magnus’s rival for the throne, Sverre, and in rr8r the   
   archbishop fled to England; from whence he is said to have   
   excommunicated Sverre.   
      
   Jocelyn of Brakelond, the chronicler of the abbey of St. Edmundsbury   
   in Suffolk, writes:“‘While the abbacy was vacant the archbishop of   
   Norway, Augustine [the name of which Eystein is the Scandinavian form;   
   cf. the English  ‘Austin'], dwelt with us in the abbot’s lodgings, and   
   by command of the king received ten shillings every day from the   
   revenues of the abbot”.   
      
   He assisted us greatly to gain freedom of election. It was on this   
   occasion that the famous Samson was elected abbot.   
      
   It is significant that St. Eystein had a strong devotion for St.   
   Thomas Becket, which later became common in the Norwegian church, and   
   it is reasonable to suppose that he visited his shrine at Canterbury   
   and it seems that it was in England that he wrote The Passion and   
   Miracles of the Blessed Olaf.   
      
     Eystein returned to Norway in 1183, and he was in his ship in Bergen   
   harbor when Sverre attacked Magnus’s ships there and forced the king   
   to flee to Denmark. In the following year Magnus lost his life in a   
   renewal of the struggle, and it may be assumed that the archbishop was   
   reconciled with King Sverre. Certainly when Eystein was on his   
   death-bed four years later Sverre visited him, and Sverre’s Saga says,   
    “They were then altogether reconciled and each forgave the other   
   those things which had been between them.”   
      
     St. Eystein died on January 26, 1188, and in 1229 a synod at Nidaros   
   declared his sanctity. This decree has never been confirmed at Rome,   
   although the preliminary investigations have been begun several times   
   but have always petered out for various reasons. Matthew of   
   Westmthster in the 13th century refers to him as a man whose holiness   
   was attested by outstanding and authentic miracles.   
     As has been said, St. Eystein’s work was to break the hold of a   
   semi-barbarous nobility over the Church in Norway and to set it more   
   free to work peacefully for her children. This meant that his own life   
   was one of devoted conflict, in which he learned by experience that,   
   in the words of his friend Theodoric, “ It is one thing to control the   
   rashness of the wicked by means of earthly force and the sword, but   
   quite another to lead souls gently with the tenderness and care of a   
   shepherd.”   
      
     The sources for the life of St. Eystein have mostly to be extracted   
   from documents of the general history of Norway, such as Sverre’s   
   Saga. What is known of him is fitted into a snore detailed account of   
   the historical background by Mrs Sigrid Undset in her Saga of  Saints   
   (1934). The manuscript of Eystein’s Passio et miracula beati Olavi was   
   found in England and edited by F. Metcalfe (1881). This manuscript   
   once belonged to Fountains Abbey.   
      
      
   "The spirit of Christian charity lives not within you, if you lament   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)