The forgotten saint, "St. Olaf's Acts of War"

Unless you have grown up in Minnesota or Norway, or have done an exhaustive search into the saints of the Catholic Church you probably have not heard of St. Olaf. I had not heard of him  myself and I am Norwegian. 

When I became a Catholic, I was very interested in my heritage not only my Catholic heritage but my national heritage. In research I came across the history of St. Olaf (or Olav). I was rather disappointed to be honest, when out of the glorious and grand stories of our saints that for some of them took several pages, I finally find St. Olaf. It was maybe 20 to 30 lines...very underwhelming.  Especially for a martyr? And mainly saying that he was a accomplished warrior, went to France and was converted to Catholicism and  then went back to Norway and united his country in Catholicism. Not long after he was martyred in battle trying to protect Norway.

As I thought and prayed about the whole story of St. Olaf, it came to me like a thunder bolt. God puts each one of us in this world for a reason. St. Olaf had decided at one point to go into exile. And through prayer and fasting, he came back to take back the Catholic kingdom of Norway. Which was a very hard decision I am sure. Especially since he was in a safe place where he could of just lived his life out. But he made the hard decision, the decision that was painful but the right one. And the one that made him a martyr.

St. Olaf's legacy does not seem like much to eyes of today. What did he really accomplish. He brought Catholicism to Norway which in turn brought many to the Lord and save many souls...not bad for a forgotten saint.

But the point I want to make is about me, and you and everyone else. It is easy to say, "I'm not going to write that book because someone else probably has already written it","I don't have to write my bishop about the rainbow mass, he already knows about it and it wouldn't do any good anyway", "It doesn't  matter what I put in my brain for entertainment, Im a mature Christian, I will just ignore the language and adult content... . All are equivalent to St. Olaf running away in exile. 

Each one of us has a very unique perspective from where the Lord has put us. It not only is unique but integral to someone, somewhere in our lives. We cannot use our human judgement to say that we are worthless, or powerless, or meaningless. St. Olaf was nobody. Hardly anyone ever heard of him, but in "God's" plan he was huge. St. Olaf's decision to come back was just as hard, (and right) as many of the very famous decisions of history, such as St. Paul going back into cities that he had been run out of and stoned in, the infamous decision's of "follow me" or "take all that you own, sell it and give the money to the poor...". 

When we look at St. Olaf's very short but very important life, I see him as a perfect example of how each person, with each hard decision, can be helping to make saints of others (which you may never know about) or of themselves.

St. Olaf's "acts of war" were two fold. One, he had to actively war against himself and make the hard choice to come back to Norway, and two, he had to make the very hard decision to come back and war against evil trying to take over his country.

St. Olaf,
Pray for us that we may, like you, make  the hard decisions to do right in all things.

Pray that we may recognize these "hard" things.

Pray that we do not expect others to do these hard things. 
Pray that we each are given the gift of seeing the hard things we need to do

In the name of the Father, and Son, 

and Holy Spirit

Amen