Holy Norbert and Heroic Normandy
Saint Norbert (+1134) of Xanten was a zealous bishop and founder, who was at the forefront of the ecclesial reform named after Pope Gregory VII, a pope often referred to by his previous name, Hildebrand, which dragged the Church out of the worst scandals of the ‘dark ages’. Norbert was born in 1075, ten years before the death of the influential Pontiff in 1085, but it was not until his 35th year, in 1115, that he underwent a deep conversion – like the later Martin Luther (a more tragic tale) Norbert survived a lightning strike, and afterward vowed his life to God. Norbert’s reform began first with himself, retreating to a life of prayer and penance, taking on a rather extreme asceticism.
At the request of Pope Callixtus II, Norbert founded a community of priests, who would live an active life, but centred on a monastic rule and haven, the Order of Canons Regular of Prémontré, colloquially called the Norbertines or the Premonstratensians. They were officially established on Christmas Day, 1120, and the Order soon flourished, with a strong emphasis on devotion to the Eucharist and Our Lady.
Six years later, Norbert was appointed bishop of Magdeburg, and, in large part due to his apostolic work, the city-state would remain a staunchly Catholic stronghold, right up until the preaching of Martin Luther four centuries hence, which, and its Protestantization under the forceful arm of secular princes, greedy for the Church’s riches – and we will not discuss the current state of the German church, which would make Norbert turn in his grave or, in a more Catholic sense, plead more fervently for his native land. Hope abounds, as always.
Upon Norbert’s death on this day in 1134, his body was brought to Prague, where it is on display in a glass-fronted sepulchre. He was canonized by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, the same year that the pontiff reformed the calendar which now goes by his name, to correct the slightly-inaccurate Julian one (as discovered by Jesuit astronomers under the brilliant Christopher Clavius), abolishing two weeks of that year by papal fiat, (by the bull Inter Gravissimas) so that Thursday, October 4th, 1582, would be followed by Friday, October 15th, 1582. So from Gregory to Gregory, but, as always, the saints and what they signify transcend the temporal vagaries of this world.
And speaking of time, today marks the 80th anniversary of D-Day. It was on June 6th, 1944 that Dwight D. Eisenhower authorized the storming of Normandy in Operation Overlord, the largest land invasion in history, when 150,000 soldiers – many of them young and untested – of various nations on the Allied side stormed the beaches of the north of France, heavily defended and fortified by the Nazi German forces. The losses were heavy, with an estimated 5000-12,000 killed on the Allied side, while the Germans suffered 4000-9000 killed, wounded or missing, along with 200,000 taken prisoner. The scale boggles the imagination, and one must stand in awe of men wading ashore through relentless machine-gun fire, trying to manoeuvre with heavy packs and guns through sand, hoping against hope that they might just survive – many were simply drowned in the high tide.
Every one of those men, as they were ferried to that fateful shore, knew he had to face and prepare for death, a courage and sacrifice of which much of our current generation is blithely unaware. We should honour and pray for them all, the dead, and the ever-smaller band of survivors, and the cause for which they died.
Yet we should also remember how easy it is to lose freedom and virtue in a society. Many of the children of those soldiers were devotees of the sexual revolution in the sixties, and voted for Pierre Elliot Trudeau. Many of Trudeau’s principles were not far from those of the socialism adopted by the Germans and Russians. And the soldiers’ grandchildren, too many of them a coddled generation raised by an ever-more deviant nanny state, have now vested the same authority in his coddled son Justin.
Both pere et fils and their sycophants have instantiated a Nazi-esque culture of death in this nation, the state-funded execution of the unborn, and a euthanasia program that targets the elderly, the sick. This is all exacerbated by relentless increase in state authority and intrusion that would have made those D-Day soldiers wonder what they were fighting and dying for, if it were all going to end in what we have in Canada, all these years on, frittering away our fiercely fought freedoms. And it’s only going to get a lot worse, unless we turn things around, and soon.
So as we remember, let us continue their fight on for liberty, for justice and for truth, a war from which we can never rest easy, for which we too must be willing to suffer and even to die.
Onward, Christian soldiers!
Carney’s Amoral Majority
After five defections – euphemistically described as ‘crossing the floor’ – and three by-elections, Mark Carney and his Liberals how have their coveted majority. One wonders what bowls of pottage were offered in back-room deals. In the archaic monarchical system that is the Dominion of Canada, this majority allows the newly-minted Prime Minister to rule[…]Continue reading→
Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress
This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→
A Tale of Two Benedicts
A grace-filled Holy Week to all our readers! As we await and prepare for the Resurrection about to dawn upon us, we might keep in mind two Benedicts: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, requiescat in pace, elected on this day in 2005; and today’s commemoration of the mystic pilgrim, Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this[…]Continue reading→
My Name is Bernadette
April 16th is a propitious day, for besides the anniversary of Father de Valk’s death, who founded Catholic Insight in its print form decades ago, and the commemoration of the ‘two Benedicts’, mentioned in accompanying posts, today we also recall Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the young visionary to whom the Virgin Mary appeared numerous times at[…]Continue reading→
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam (1380 – 1433) was one of the countless and glorious ‘victim souls’ in the history of the Church, those whose lives are filled with suffering, often of an unimaginable intensity, but who suffer joyfully. She was a fifteen-year old Dutch girl, out skating one day, when she fell and broke one[…]Continue reading→
The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus
As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading→
Canonizing Sister Faustina and Divine Mercy
HOMILY OF THE HOLY FATHER MASS IN ST PETER’S SQUARE FOR THE CANONIZATION OF SR MARY FAUSTINA KOWALSKA Sunday, 30 April 2000 1. “Confitemini Domino quoniam bonus, quoniam in saeculum misericordia eius”; “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his steadfast love endures for ever” (Ps 118: 1). So the Church sings on the Octave of[…]Continue reading→
Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów
We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→
Saint Gemma Galgani
On this April 11th, in 1903 – the same year that the Italian Guiseppe Sarto was elected Pope later that summer as Pius X – a lovely, young Italian woman died, by the name of Gemma Galgani. She lived a brief life of 24 years, as did a number of other young saints, including Pier[…]Continue reading→
An Ideological and Improper Translation
I noticed something odd with the psalm reading at Mass the other day. Our bishops’ conference here in Canada has decreed that the Mass in English – Novus Ordo – use the ‘NRSV’, the ‘New Revised Standard Version’, an ‘updated’ translation of the original RSV, first published in 1952. This ‘new translation’ has the tendency[…]Continue reading→