Homily: June 6 2016 - St. Norbert - From worldliness to holiness

About a thousand years ago, there lived a man by the name of Norbert who started a religious order called the Premonstratensians.  Most people know them today as the Norbertines.  

Norbert was of noble birth and brilliant mind, a member of the secular canons of St. Victor. Soon after ordination as a subdeacon he was made personal chaplain to the Holy Roman Emperor Henry V.  Though he was put in charge of dispensing alms to the poor, Norbert began to take on a lot of bad habits of the wealthy elite of the emperor’s court. As he grew in worldliness, his faith began to diminish.

One day in the spring of 1115, he was riding his horse to a nearby village, and a violent thunderstorm broke out.  He was thrown from his horse and almost died.  This close brush with death caused Norbert to rethink his life—to reexamine his faithfulness to Christ.  He decided to give up his position in the imperial court dedicate his life to the contemplation of Christ. 

He was ordained a priest later that year. He renounced all of his worldly possessions, and with great gusto he announced he wished to reform the canons of St. Victor. His enthusiasm was not well received.  So for a time he was a wandering preacher throughout France. Some admired his actions while others became perturbed and irritated. Eventually, he moved to the valley of Premontre in northern France, from which we get the name Premonstratensian.  There he was joined by men attracted to his preaching of the Gospel—and the small group of about thirty men professed solemn vows and took the white religious habit which they wear to this day.

He encouraged the members of his religious order to read the scriptures often, and to pattern their lives after the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Pope Benedict XVI wrote: Our own time must be increasingly marked by a new hearing of God’s word and a new evangelization. Recovering the centrality of the divine word in the Christian life leads us… to embark upon the new evangelization, especially in those nations where the Gospel has been forgotten or meets with indifference as a result of widespread secularism. May the Holy Spirit awaken a hunger and thirst for the word of God, and raise up zealous heralds and witnesses of the Gospel.”

Daily reading and study of scripture will help to equip us with the great challenge of spreading the Gospel in our age marked by a growing secularism, and allows the reign of Christ to be spread to all corners of our minds and hearts, for the glory of God and salvation of souls.