St. Norbert

St. Norbert was born around 1080 at Xanten in the German Rhineland to a noble family. Ordained a subdeacon as a young man, he lived comfortably as a canon of the collegiate church of Xanten and as a courtier, first in the household of the archbishop of Cologne and then at the court of Emperor Henry V, showing little interest in the obligations of his clerical state. According to his early biographers, Norbert's conversion came suddenly around 1115, when a bolt of lightning threw him from his horse during a storm. Shaken, he withdrew for a period of prayer and penance, was ordained a priest, and gave up his revenues and property. After his zeal for reform met resistance at Xanten, he received papal permission to become an itinerant preacher, traveling barefoot through northern France and the Low Countries calling clergy and laity alike to repentance. In 1120, at the urging of the bishop of Laon, Norbert settled with a small band of followers in the remote valley of Prémontré, where he founded a community of canons regular living under the Rule of St. Augustine. The Premonstratensians, or Norbertines, combined monastic discipline with active pastoral ministry, and the order spread rapidly across Europe. Norbert became known especially as a defender of the Holy Eucharist, preaching against the heretic Tanchelm in Antwerp, who had denied the sacrament; for this he is often depicted holding a monstrance. In 1126 Norbert was appointed archbishop of Magdeburg, where he worked to reform the clergy and recover church property, efforts that earned him enemies and at least one attempt on his life. In the papal schism of 1130 he stood firmly with Pope Innocent II against the antipope Anacletus II, helping to secure the support of the German emperor. He died at Magdeburg on June 6, 1134. Norbert was canonized in 1582 by Pope Gregory XIII. In 1627 his relics were translated to Strahov Abbey in Prague, where they remain enshrined today, and he was proclaimed a patron of Bohemia. His feast is celebrated on June 6, and he is invoked as a patron of peace and, by long devotional tradition, of expectant mothers seeking a safe delivery.