Forgiveness in Kristin Lavransdatter

Trent Horn is a Catholic apologist and author who often appears on Catholic Answers. He also has his own podcast, The Council of Trent. In his latest podcast, Trent asked his wife, Laura Horn, to answer questions addressed to her from his fans. Many of the questions related to Trent, but some of the fans had written more personal questions, unrelated to Trent. One fan asked Laura to name her favorite book, and my ears perked up when she said Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset. I’d just finished the book.

I hoped that Laura would have some insight, but the conversation between husband and wife fell into silly banter.  Trent wanted to know if he was the handsome Erlend or the faithful Simon. Laura seemed to choose an escape route by saying that Trent was more like Kristin’s father, Lavrans. Lavrans is perhaps the moral compass of the book. At one point, Lavrans tells Kristin he considered becoming a monk before his marriage. His family finds objects of corporeal punishment in his possession. Overall, he leads a life of deep holiness and is Kristin’s model.

The Mercy of God: Forgiveness a Lifelong Goal

Arguably, the story of Kristin Lavransdatter is actually about the mercy of God and our ability to accept it. In this light, one of the most important characters is Brother Edvin. Kristin meets him as a young girl. Inside a beautiful church, he engages her in theological discussion. Prophetically, he speaks about God’s mercy, something that will become key to Kristin’s life. “It was because of God’s mercy toward us that He saw how our hearts were split, and he came down to live among us, in order to taste in fleshly form, the temptations of the devil when he entices us with power and glory and the menace of the world when it offers us blows and contempt and the wounds of sharp nails in our hands and feet. In this manner, He showed us the way and allowed us to see His love” (35). 

Brother Edvin seems to promise that redemption through the cross is always possible even for poor, “split” human beings. Kristin’s life can become like the beautiful stained-glass windows in the church or the beautiful tabernacles that Brother Edvin carves. Kristin works to make this goal a reality.

 The Split Heart

Years later, Kristin goes back to the monk. She seeks “reconciliation with everything from which she had come to feel herself cut off” (152). Kristin is in her teens, living in a convent, and visiting Erlend in secret. She seeks confession from Brother Edvin but is denied it. The church forbids the monk from hearing from confession because of a past sin of anger. As a youth, he attacked men trying to prevent the building of his monastery.  Kristin opens up to the monk anyway.

She tells him about breaking her engagement to Simon and about her sins with Erlend. In response, Brother Edvin recalls seeing Kristin as a child. “I saw you sitting there, so tiny and pitiful inside that huge stone building, then I thought it was reasonable that God should love someone like you. You were lovely and pure, and yet you needed protection and help” (155). He corrects Kristin for repeating Erlend’s belief that making an oath with someone in secret is equal to marriage. He also rebukes her for falling into the trap of excusing her own sins by looking at the frailty in others. Ultimately, he suggests Kristin’s ability to return to this childhood state of innocence if she truly seeks repentance of the heart. If sinful desires no longer split her apart, she will find God and peace again.

Brother Edvin sets a clear path before Kristin. “Do penance in your heart as best you can–and do not let this Erlend tempt you to sin more often, but ask him lovingly to seek reconciliation with your kinsmen and with God” (157). However, Kristin deviates from the plan. She continues to excuse her own sin by believing that everyone has fits of passion. She continues to sleep with Erlend and to focus more on avoiding detection. Finally, she gets what she wanted, and becomes Erlend’s betrothed.

A Journey Toward Peace and Unconditional love

One night, she finds the sick monk huddled by the edge of the road. He was on his way to visit her, but became so ill he could not continue. “It’s been weighing so heavy on my heart, Kristin, that you had strayed from the path of peace” (250) he tells her. He also admits that since her childhood, he has often prayed that she would join a convent. Kristin brings him to safety, and he recovers enough to set out on his journey. He is able to reach the monastery where he has intended to breathe his last. Learning of his death, Kristin feels she has lost the one person who truly knew her and all her secrets. In many ways, however, his death initiates Kristin’s own journey towards peace and, ultimately, the convent.

Shortly before his death, Brother Edvin tells Kristin not to tell her father about the sins he doesn’t know she has committed. He asks, “don’t you understand, child, that this is why you must never tell him, and why you must not cause him any more sorrow? Because he would never demand penance from you. Nothing you do could ever change your father’s heart toward you” (253). Like God the Father, Lavrans’s love is unconditional. Yet Kristin lives in a world that demands certain conditions–often in public–for the forgiveness of sin.

She sets out on a public pilgrimage to seek absolution for her sins from the archbishop. At the end of her journey, she recalls Brother Edvin’s words about her father’s unconditional love and sees him in a vision. His actions are mysterious: “The monk laughed and held up a heavy old leather glove toward her; then he hung it on the moonbeam. He smiled, even more, nodded to her, and then vanished” (410). As we shall see, the act has significance in understanding God’s forgiveness.

Faith and Forgiveness

There are several incidents with gloves, all of which seem to align with Kristin’s interpretation of her vision of Brother Edvin, “She had understood his message when he smiled so gently and hung his glove on the moonbeam. If only she had enough faith, she would become a good woman” (439). Earlier, Brother Edvin while alive, lies to a monk, presumably to hide the fact he is showing precious monastery books to Kristin. He rebukes himself afterward, “If I had the proper faith and love, I wouldn’t stand here and lie to Brother Aasulv. But then I could just as well take these old leather gloves and hang them up on that ray of sunshine over there” (37). Hanging one’s gloves is something one does after work.

Here it suggests Brother Edvin’s faith in grace, rather than his own work. In another telling incident, Erlend realizes he has lost a glove shortly after striking Kristin in anger. The loss of a glove made by Kristin symbolizes a loss of faith. Faith must reunite them. In sum, to find forgiveness and lead a holy life, one needs to have faith in the mercy of God and men. More often than not, this faith is a gift sought through prayers and pious works.

The Eucharistic Paradox of Forgiveness

At the end of the book, before Kristin enters the convent as a nun herself, Brother Edvin pays her one last earthly visit. “Brother Edvin was walking toward her from the doorway to the main house [of some grand estate]. His hands were full of bread, and when he reached her, she saw that she had been forced to do as she envisioned, to ask for alms when she came to the villages” (1071). Even in her dream, Kristin is aware that the monk’s bread is “the Host, panis angelorum, and she accepted the food of angels from his hand. And now she gave her promise in Brother Edvin’s hands” (1071). Presumably, this promise might be her vow of religious life which she gives to the monk in exchange for the body of Christ.

This closing image of Brother Edvin perfectly presents the two views of forgiveness in Kristin Lavransdatter’s world. One sees forgiveness often in legalistic terms.  This view centers on the community’s deep commitment to honor and public order. In this sense, Kristin’s public repentance proves necessary.s in a We cannot dismiss this view as simply pharsitical since even today the Church recognizes a public aspect of forgiveness. The other view sees forgiveness as a gift from God and something that cannot truly be our right. Forgiveness will always be given out of mercy, not justice. No better image encapsulates this than the eucharist. The eucharist requires pureness of heart–no one should receive it in a state of mortal sin, but it also remains infinitely above us. Our ability to receive it is itself an act of mercy.

Conclusion: The Prodigal Son

Perhaps, Kristin’s entrance into religious life is in a similar relationship to her years as a laywoman. If seen simply as a condemnation of the world, Brother Edvin’s desire for Kristin to be a nun becomes troubling. If seen more as his desire for Kristin to embrace the free gift of God the Father’s forgiveness, it becomes beautiful. Likewise, if we see her time in the convent and her trials during her married life as a simple equation of suffering in order to gain forgiveness, something seems distorted.

However, if we see Kristin’s life as a free gift to God and God’s forgiveness as a free gift to her, the picture seems more complete. That said, Kristin’s suffering for her sin and her repentance are necessary, not so much to win God’s forgiveness but to elicit it. Like the prodigal son, she must turn back in order to receive the lavish gifts of the father.

Here, we come full circle to the conversation between Trent and Laura. The proper desire of a young woman to please her father and to find a good father figure in a husband reflects a deeper desire to be united with God the Father, the ultimate, suffering Lavrans.