Catholic Herald: Catholic Mass celebrated in Swedish cathedral for first time in 500 years

The Lutheran Church of Sweden has offered the cathedral as a temporary place of worship to a local Catholic parish

Catholic Mass will be celebrated in the medieval cathedral in the Swedish city of Lund for the first time since the Reformation.

The Lutheran Church of Sweden has offered the cathedral as a temporary place of worship to the Catholic parish of St Thomas, whose church will be closed for major renovation from this autumn until next spring. The first weekly Mass will be held on October 21.

Pope Francis visited the southern Swedish city in October 2016 for a joint Catholic-Lutheran commemoration of the 500th anniversary of the Reformation. He and Lutheran leaders prayed together at the cathedral and pledged closer spiritual and practical cooperation in their “common journey of reconciliation”. Since then the two communities have held joint Vespers in each other’s churches.

The Rev Lena Sjöstrand, chaplain of the cathedral, said the papal visit to Lund and the nearby city of Malmö “touched so many people”. Through these continuing celebrations, she said, people see that the visit was not just “a one-off event”, but rather a concrete way of strengthening relations between the two Christian communities.

The sharing of services, and now the sharing of the cathedral for Mass, reflect the spirit of the joint 2013 document “From Conflict to Communion”, which focused on the outcome of fifty years of dialogue since the Second Vatican Council. -Catholic Herald

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Article Source: Why I'm Catholic

I grew up fatherless in a multigenerational household. Being surrounded by extended family – all the time – was a great comfort to me as an only child, as was attending Sunday School every week at the ELCA Lutheran church where my mother and her seven siblings were all baptized, where I was baptized, and where later my three sons would all be baptized as well.

I loved Sunday School and singing in the children's choir at church. The music of worship always made me feel happy, at peace, and closer to God. My favorite hymns of childhood still bring me such joy. I remember in one of the classrooms at Sunday School hung a beautiful painting of Jesus, surrounded by children, and I thought “it would be wonderful if He were my dad!” When the teacher explained that He was my spiritual Father, well, that suited me perfectly.

As the years went on, I embarked upon a bumpy road through a stage of adolescent rebellion, though I still went to Sunday school. I attended every Sunday, even with a shaved head and heavy black eyeliner – until I was sixteen. That's when my faith got shaky, then disappeared completely for a spell. I'd ‘fallen in with the wrong crowd’, which meant I'd fallen out of my religion.