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St. Norbert
On June 6 the Catholic Church honors Saint Norbert of Xanten – who
started out as a frivolous and worldly cleric, but was changed by God’s
grace into a powerful preacher and an important reformer of the Church
during the early 12th century.
He is the founder of the Norbertine order.
Born around the year 1080 in the German town of Xanten, Norbert belonged
to a high-ranking family with ties to the imperial court. As a young
man he showed a high degree of intelligence and sophistication – which
marked him out as a contender for offices within the Church, the state,
or both. None of this, however, was any guarantee of a holy life. On the
contrary, Norbert’s gifts and advantages would prove to be a source of
temptation even after he joined the ranks of the clergy.
Norbert was ordained as a subdeacon, and enrolled with a group of
clerics in his town, before moving on to an appointment with the
powerful Archbishop of Cologne. He went on to serve the German Emperor
Henry V, in a position which involved the distribution of aid to the
poor. In all of this, however, Norbert displayed no particular piety or
personal seriousness, living a rather pleasurable and luxurious life.
His worldly outlook had been called into question in 1110, when he
accompanied Emperor Henry V on a trip to Rome. The Pope and emperor were
involved in a long-running dispute over the right to right to choose
the Church’s clergy and control its properties. As their negotiations
failed, Norbert was moved by the Pope’s argument that the Church must
govern itself. At the same time, he saw his master Henry V take the
extreme measure of imprisoning the Pope in order to have his way in the
matter.
This was not enough, in itself, to prompt a reform of Norbert’s own
life. That change would come from a brush with death, in approximately
1112: while riding on horseback near Xanten, he was caught in a storm
and nearly killed by a lightning bolt. The frightened horse threw
Norbert off, and he lay unconscious for some time. Sobered by the
experience, he left his imperial post and began a period of prayer and
discernment in a monastery. At age 35, he heard God calling him to the
priesthood.
Radically converted to the ideals of the Gospel, Norbert was now set
against the worldly attitude he had once embodied. This made him
unpopular with local clerics, who responded with insults and
condemnation. But Norbert was not turning back. He gave all of his
wealth to the poor, reducing himself to a barefoot and begging pilgrim
who possessed nothing except the means to celebrate Mass.
Pope Callixtus II gave Norbert permission to live as an itinerant
preacher, and he was asked to found a religious order so that others
might live after his example. He settled in the northern French region
of Aisne, along with a small group of disciples who were to live
according to the Rule of St. Augustine. On December 25, 1121, they were
established as the Canons Regular of Premontre, also known as the
Premonstratensians or Norbertines.
Their founder also established a women’s branch of the order, before
returning to Germany for a successful preaching tour. He founded a lay
branch of the Premonstratensians (the Third Order of St. Norbert), and
went on to Belgium, where he preached against a sect that denied the
power of the sacraments. His order was invited into many Northern
European dioceses, and there was talk of making Norbert a bishop.
Though he avoided an earlier attempt to make him the Bishop of Wurzburg,
Norbert was eventually chosen to become the Archbishop of Magdeburg in
Germany. The archdiocese was in serious moral and financial trouble, and
the new archbishop worked hard to reform it. His efforts were partly
successful, but not universally accepted: Norbert was the target of
three failed assassination attempts, made by opponents of his reforms.
When a dispute arose over the papal succession in 1130, Norbert traveled
to Rome to support the legitimate Pope Innocent II. Afterward he
returned to Germany and became a close adviser to its Emperor Lothar. In
a sense, his life seems to have come full-circle: the first hints of
his conversion had come on a trip to Rome two decades earlier, when he
accompanied a previous emperor. This time, however, Norbert was seeking
God’s will, not his own advancement.
With his health failing, Norbert was brought back to Magdeburg. He died
there on June 6, 1134. Pope Gregory XIII canonized St. Norbert in 1582.
As of 2012, the Premonstratensians are present in 25 nations around the
world.
Source: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/saint.php?n=491
