-
- Abbot General's Easter 2007
- Letter to the Order
Dear
Brothers and Sisters:
“Original
Edition”
Madeleine
Delbrêl, the “Other Saint”,
once wrote:
“In
every period of history God has given to a series of people the task of
setting an example of the Gospel according to the original text, of
depicting in their person, ‘in flesh and blood’, so to speak, a
contemporary original edition.”
St.
Norbert, “Institutor Ordinis Nostri”, understood the gospel
fundamentally, interpreted it literally, and lived it radically.
He wanted to live the original text “in flesh and blood”.
And so he gave up everything and became an itinerant preacher.
Yes, he remained one for the rest of his life, even from Prémontré,
as well as from
Magdeburg
. He was in the eyes of his
contemporaries an original edition. His
mission was not relegated to the realm of subjective interiority and monastic
seclusion. Instead, it
increasingly took on public and eschatological significance.
And so it is no wonder that he became involved in politics, such as
the church politics of his time. As
Norbert Backmund
always expressed it, he wanted to be active on all levels for the
kingdom
of
God
.
“Spirituality
of Participation”
This
missionary form of religious life is very beautifully
expressed in a document of Indian religious women:
“A
new spirituality for religious life must be developed that is deeply
rooted in the Gospel and in the life of the poor.
It must be a spirituality of participation.”
This word “participation” is not completely new.
As Premonstratensians we have certainly always committed ourselves
to the building up of our own community, but then also to the building up
of communities around our monasteries and even beyond, if we think of the
missionary activity just in the 19th and 20th
centuries. Cloistered life
doesn’t work in any other way than to break out of your own home, out of
the confines of your own heart, in order to surface in the life of
another. These are first of
all the lives of our own confreres with whom we are
meant to live, with whom we earnestly and with great enterprise should
build up Communio, with whom we should become “one heart and one
soul on the way to God”.
But it is more than that; it is just like Norbert who again and
again left Prémontré in order to go out to people, a journey that took
him throughout
Europe
. To become involved and
immerse oneself, to participate and take part – is a serious ministry
conceivable in any other way? Was
mission ever to be formed in another way than just to plunge into a
strange culture and implant the Christian life in new surroundings, to
establish a cloistered life and then to announce the Gospel to the people?
What
was in former times expected of the European missionaries is now required
of our confreres who come from
India
and
Africa
: to plunge into the European
world, into the American world, and to become involved where they have now
been sent. Indians go to
Texas
and to
Germany
; Africans go to other African countries (
Gabon
,
South Africa
), but even to
Italy
,
Belgium
,
France
,
USA
…
Plunging
in is perhaps never free of fear of drowning, being overwhelmed and losing
one’s monastic identity. It
requires a twofold skill, first to be deeply grounded in your own monastic
community and tradition, however, it also requires a great degree of
flexibility and spiritual mobility, opening yourself to new conditions and
requirements and developing them. Here
Norbert is a great model for us and certainly a concerned advocate.
If
we are preparing ourselves for Easter during these days and weeks, then
perhaps this expression “Spirituality of Participation” takes on a new
depth and urgency. Gmainer-Pranzl
in his article on religious life
asks us to orient ourselves toward the Passover of Jesus, yes even that
this Passover must become for us a model of orientation.
Jesus completely involved himself in his mission, beginning with
the incarnation, where he literally became like us, except for sin, even
to the extreme sacrifice of his life for us and for our salvation.
He plunged into the abyss of human suffering; he suffered
desolateness even to the point of being desolate of God on the cross.
It is “the descent into the realm of the dead”, as it is
referred to in the Credo. But
then this descent became a ‘transitus’, a passage, a
‘pesach’ to the resurrection, an ascent to the glory of the father.
Our being Christian and our religious life are marked
by this participation in the Easter mystery.
Our Father Augustine who wrote our rule expressed it this way:
“In
the passion and resurrection of the Lord our passing from life to death is
made holy.”
We
are baptized into this mystery, into death and resurrection.
In our religious profession we have handed ourselves over
completely to God, which “establishes, as it were, a special
consecration that takes root deeply in our baptismal consecration
and expresses it more fully.”
And
according to Premonstratensian tradition, along with the acceptance of the
white habit, we have also undertaken the mission task of the angel of the
resurrection
who said to the women: “You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, the
crucified. He is risen…
Now go and tell his disciples, above all Peter, ‘He goes before
you to
Galilee
; there you will see him as he told you’” (Mk 16, 6-7).
As Mary Magdalene – greatly honored in the Order first as a
penitent and then as a herald – receives from Jesus the mission task,
“Go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am going to my Father and to
your Father, to my God and to your God’” (Jn 20, 17), just so we, as
Christians and as “White Canons”, are sent to announce the Easter
message to people. This is
the passing from death to life, the breaking through from night to light,
the ascent from the earthly to the heavenly Father.
The Lord lives! The Lord goes forth.
Wish
And
so I wish all the confreres and sisters of our Order in the individual
canonries and all the “Norbertine Associates” a happy and blessed
Easter, the peace of the risen Lord and the joy that filled the disciples
“as they recognized the Lord” (Lk 24, 31).
The
Lord is risen! He is truly
risen! Alleluia!
- +
Thomas Handgrätinger
-
Abate Generale
