Enjoying Norwegian hospitality

On Monday I travelled up to London to meet up with my good friend Fr Martin Stamnestro. We first met in 2001 at Pusey House, and both are now converts to the Catholic Church. Fr Martin is now a parish priest and diocesan officer in his native Norway at Alesund. 

We arranged to meet at the London Oratory, which he was visiting to participate in their Forty Hours Devotion which begins today. He had booked an altar to say an EF Mass, and this turned out to be at at St Philip's Altar. as it was 5pm I and one other person formed the congrgation, with me responding to the Mass using an app on my mobile phone so to do ( I surprise myself sometime sat my technical skills these days) as I knelt at the communion rail.

With Fr Martin were the Administrator and the Cantor from the Catholic cathedral in Trondheim. This is currently the only Catholic cathedral being built in the world and one of the reasons for their visit to London was to do some practical reseach as to equipping the new building and to do some sacristy shopping - they were paying avisit to Messrs. Watts emporium today.

After the Mass we went by taxi to Rotherhithe, to the Norwegian church there. This church of St Olav is the official chapel to the Norwegian community in London, originating as the Seamans Mission. Here we met up again with the Chaplain, the Rev. Torbjorn Holt, whom I first met through Fr Martin when Torbjorn, then chaplain to Norwegian students in Britain, was based in Oxford. He is an excellent and generous host and we dined with him and the local Anglican Vicar, whom I had met on my last visit to St Olav's. Dinner was very convivial, with the conversation ranging over parish life an dpractice, mutual friends, shared history and the European Referendum.

I was invited to stayed overnight at St Olav's, and then this morning found that a bus from outside the church would take me almost right to the coach stop for Oxford in Victoria, so that I was back in good time to give a tour of the city.

A most enjoyable and enlivening interlude and an opportunity to catch up with good and valued friends.

St Olav

In addition to today being the feast of St Martha it is also the feast day of St Olav, King of Norway, who was killed in battle on this day in 1029. He is the patron saint of Norway, and in medieval constitutional theory the eternal or perpetual King of Norway. Thus it is his crown which is the crown of the kingdom - although it is in actual fact a handsome nineteenth century piece - and Trondheim, the burial place of St Olav, became the traditional place for the crown to be kept and for the King's coronation.

There is an illustrated online account of St Olav here. I have posted about him before in St Olaf's day in 2011 and in St Eystein, in 2012. 

Here is a picture of  the striking life sizestatue of St Olav in the entrance to the church dedicated to him and which is the Norwegian church in London:

 

Image:londontown.com

 I posted about the church in Rotherhithe in A corner of London that is forever Norway earlier this year.

 This is therefore a day upon which to remember and pray for my own Norwegian friends, and for the King and people of Norway. May St Olav continue to intercede for them.

A corner of London that is forever Norway

On Monday evening I went up to London to dine at the Norwegian Church in London, which is located in Rotherhithe. The invitation came through my good friend Fr Martin Stamnestro, whom I first knew when we were both members of the congregation at Pusey House, and when he was doing his doctorate. Having served as Sacristan at Pusey he was received as a Catholic just after I was, and is now the priest at Ålesund (Aalesund) in his native Norway. He tells me that his parish is the size of Norfolk. 

I have posted abou him before in Ordination in Oslo, Ordination in Norway tomorrow and Fr Stamnestro's Ordination and First Mass.

 
Fr Martin is on a brief visit to this country and was staying at the Norwegian Church, whose Pastor and Chaplain, the Rev.Torbjørn Holt, I had met frequently through Fr Martin when we were all in Oxford -  Torbjørn was then based here as Chaplain to Norwegian students in the UK. the invitation was to dine and to sleep over and return on Tuesday. I felt able to relax my Lenten discipline as I was travelling, and receiving hospitality, and it was also the ninth anniversary of my reception as a Catholic.

The church is near the Bermondsey tube station so the journey was easy, and I found myself at a dinner party whose other guests included another old Pusey friend who is now a Catholic and a barrister in London, the local Anglican vicar and his curate, who himself was a more recent Sacristan of Pusey House, and members of the Norwegian community, some of whom I had met before when I visited the church at Easter 2007. This was the beginning of an evening of very generous and graceful hospitality in the Chaplain's very handsome flat, which is situated on the first floor of the church building. We had lively and cheerful discussion about most topics under the sun - and in religious terms a true and generous ecumenical friendship was once again very apparent.

 St Olav's Church Rotherhithe

Image:tony-dingle.blogspot.co.uk

There has been a Norwegian church in London since the late seventeenth century and was originally a seaman's mission. The present church itself dates from 1927, the foundation stone having been laid the year before by Crown Prince Olav - later King Olav V  -  and during the Second World War was accorded pro-Cathedral status , and used by the exiled King Haakon VII and his government.

Today it is very much a Norwegian cultural centre in London, as are the other Scandinavian churches for their respective national communities, and as can be seen here.

Therte is an article about the church and its ministry here and another with good pictures of the building and its furnishings here. 

On Tuesday I joined in a hearty Scandinavian style breakfast of cold meat and cheese  before travelling with Torbjørn and Martin by taxi across London, dropping Torbjørn off at Church House for ameeting before going to Brompton Oratory where Martin had arranged to say Mass. Very unfortunately I was unable to stay for that as I had to be back in Oxford by mid-afternoon and the taxi-ride had taken longer than any of had expected, and we were running late. However we plan to meet today for lunch when he is here in Oxford.

A most enjoyable break with good friends in London, and almost a foreign holiday in itself.