Today is the feast day of St. Norbert (1081-1134). This poor guy. He was so misunderstood. He was just your average guy, living for the moment, hedonistic, ambitious, worldly, superficially religious (like most people). He got thrown from his horse and was unconscious for an hour. When he awoke, he said, "Lord, what wilt thou have me to do?" And a heavenly voice replied, "Turn from evil and do good: seek after peace and pursue it." So he became the peace apostle. Originally from Cleves in the Netherlands, he obtained a papal leave to preach the Gospel wherever he chose -- and he went all over Europe. He was a bit eccentric, it is said, and he was profoundly misunderstood. He was denounced as "a hypocrite and an innovator" and nearly arrested for "preaching without a license." He showed his papal document and proved his sincerity by almost totally divesting himself of wealth (he was a priest), keeping only 40 marks, a donkey, a missal, vestments, a chalice and a paten. He walked barefoot and wore a lambskin tied with a rope. No wonder they called him eccentric!
He tried to reform the local canons in Laon, but they bridled at his reforms. Leaving them, he was given an abandoned monastery in Premontre in France, where he started his own (strict) order, the Premonstratensians. (They were modeled on the Augustinians and adopted a white habit. They are sometimes called the White Canons or the Norbertines.) He took in so many men, he soon had 8 abbeys. But he didn't take everybody. He rejected Count Theobald because he discerned his lack of vocation; he gently advised him to marry. When he did, he took St. Norbert with him. They passed through Speyer on their way to Germany and the wedding and while there, Norbert was shaghaied into being the bishop of Magdeberg. Not really shaghaied, but blindsided by the deputation from Magdeberg who importuned the emperor (Lothair) who was visiting Speyer. And the emperor installed him.
He was true blue, though. He didn't care who the priest was -- if he was guilty of neglect or immorality, he was remonstrated with and if he didn't listen to reason he was punished or replaced, sometimes by Norbert's own Premonstratensians. As you can imagine, it didn't win him many friends. Among the laity, too, he was hated, especially by those laymen who acquired church property for personal use. He took action against them.
He was on the side of right always. When a schism broke out, he ascertained the true pope (Innocent II) who was then in France and he opposed the antipope, "Anacletus II", the favorite of Rome -- but not legally elected by the majority of cardinals. Norbert and Lothair traveled to Rome with Innocent to help instate him. Norbert died almost as soon as he returned from the grueling trip. Because as I have said, travel can be murder.
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