Feast day: June 6
St. Norbert
A worldly German courtier thrown from his horse in a storm and converted, who became a barefoot wandering preacher, founded the Premonstratensian order, and was made archbishop of Magdeburg.
Norbert was born about 1080 into a noble family of the Rhineland and, for the first part of his life, was a worldly and ambitious cleric, holding a comfortable position at the imperial court and in the Church while caring little for his religious duties. A brush with death changed everything: thrown from his horse in a thunderstorm, he rose a converted man.
He gave away his wealth, was ordained a priest, and became a wandering preacher of penance, so austere and zealous that he made enemies among the lax clergy he rebuked. Seeking a stable foundation for reform, in 1120 he established a community in a lonely valley in France called Prémontré, founding the order of canons known as the Premonstratensians, or Norbertines.
His preaching placed him at the centre of two great causes of the age: the defence of the doctrine of the Real Presence against a heretic at Antwerp, and the reform of the clergy. So great was his reputation that, much against his will, he was made archbishop of the important see of Magdeburg in 1126, where his strict reforms again earned him bitter opposition and even attempts on his life.
He was a loyal supporter of the papacy during a schism and a friend of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. He died at Magdeburg in 1134. His patronage against false accusations arises from the episodes in which he was slandered and then vindicated.
Struck from his horse by lightning and spared, he gave away his wealth and became a reformer of clergy and a famed promoter of devotion to the Eucharist.
Image: Carolus (CC BY 4.0), via Wikimedia Commons.
Source: newadvent.org/cathen/11100b.htm
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