Homily for St Norbert's Day, 2023

Tonight, we rejoice in our first St Norbert’s day in our new home in Peckham. For us, not only is it a beautiful feast to celebrate, but we rejoice as well in our new home and our new mission. As a community, we feel blessed by the providence of God and give thanks to Him tonight for guiding us, sons of St Norbert, to this holy place. We are truly grateful to all of our parishioners for making us feel so very welcome and so very much at home in Peckham. In this Holy mass, we give thanks to Almighty God for the gift of a new home where our Order can flourish and grow, so please join me in praying for the Lord to send more young men to follow the example of St Norbert and join our community here in Peckham.

Our holy father St Norbert is most often depicted holding the Blessed Sacrament in his hand. He is rightly called “the apostle of the Blessed Sacrament.” He had a great love for the holy eucharist. This extended to his desire for everything to be spotless and clean around the altar, because of who it is we see on the altar. If you go to Rome and look up at the colonnade around St Peter’s Basilica, you will see so many statues of saints, but the very last statue on the left hand side is St Norbert and unusually he has his back to St Peter’s. Why? Because in his hand he is holding the monstrance, lifting up the Blessed Sacrament above the errors and miseries of the world. His great love for our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament is one that we strive to follow and live in our daily lives. The encounter with the Lord in the Eucharist is the greatest gift we rejoice in together and we should strive to daily love the Eucharist more and more. How we treat the Blessed Sacrament is a mark of how well know that the Lord is truly here, and he is the one we receive and adore.

One of St Norbert’s lesser known titles is the patron saint of Expectant Mothers & Infertile Married Couples. Why is this, you may well ask.

We’re told in the life of St Norbert that a pious woman once approached St Norbert asking whether she and her husband ought to separate and enter monasteries because they lived in an infertile marriage. St Norbert prophesied that they would be blessed with children, the first of whom would be dedicated to God. This child, Nicholas, did indeed become a Norbertine at Prémontré. St Norbert is traditionally invoked for a good childbirth. The Norbertine Canonesses at Doksany (Czech Republic) in modern times promote this devotion to St. Norbert as patron of infertile couples or endangered pregnancies and report hundreds of families now blessed with children, the sisters having well over 3,000 spiritual children.

So, St Norbert is the Apostle of the Blessed Sacrament and patron of expectant mothers. This is significant for the time that we live in. Real reform of the Church begins with a return to a love of the Blessed Sacrament and proclamation of the church’s teaching on the dignity of human life, the beautiful truth that life begins at the moment of conception and that all human life is a sacred gift from the moment of conception until a natural death. The sanctity of the eucharist and the sanctity of life itself are under attack and openly mocked by some, and yet they are the answer, the key to real renewal in the Church and for the Church to flourish again. They are the talents that the Lord refers to in the gospel this evening. He has given us these great gifts, we should use them to increase the number of souls who may have the chance of hearing the words of tonight’s gospel, “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

This is why St Norbert, our holy founder, is the saint for our times. He knew how important it was and is to love and rejoice in the gift of the Lord himself in the Holy Mass. To come to the altar and dare to receive the Lord of all into our lives. And that for this beautiful and awesome gift, we should strive to make our souls a worthy home for the Lord to dwell. To live our faith with love and passion and to always come to the altar with our soul cleansed by the purifying grace of absolution in the sacrament of confession. It is a changeless truth that we should rejoice in and share with others. At the same, St Norbert being invoked in prayer for a good childbirth and for all expectant mothers is a sharp rebuke to a world that allows evil to destroy the blessing of human life. We as Christians need to be proud of being prolife. The teaching of the Church on the gift of life is a great treasure for us to share and the world desperately needs us to be bold and strong in proclaiming the truth that every life matters, from the moment the divine spark of life begins to the time we leave this life and enter eternity. On this, we can not compromise, we can not back down from being the voice of the voiceless, of the children God has created and the world allows to be destroyed. Our faith, our Catholic faith, is the absolute truth revealed by God for the salvation of the world. It is a wonderful and joyous message to proclaim, and, in the times we live in, we have the privilege of being the ones to live and proclaim our faith. Use these talents well, and the increase will be manifold.

On this St Norbert’s day, may we be graced with the same love and holiness that lit up the life of St Norbert. May we have the same courage to stand against corruption and sin. May we have the same desire to bring all souls to Christ, most especially our own. May we be truly sons and daughters of a loving God who desires the salvation of all souls. For this then, may we live our faith in the Blessed Sacrament, the body, blood, soul, and divinity of Christ. And may we truly be Christians of life. To live the truth our gospel of life proclaims and stand up for the children that God creates and should always be allowed to live and grow.

With this in our hearts, may we hope one day to hear for our selves the words, “well done, good and faithful servant. Come and enter into the master’s joy.”

Dear brothers and sisters, pray for your Norbertine priests and brothers. Pray that we may never flee from the wolves but live and teach the truth of Christ, a truth you have a right to and should demand. If we fail to teach Christ, drive us out of the parish! Be assured that we pray for you all every day and hope that you rejoice with us in our holy patron tonight.

St Norbert, apostle of the Blessed Sacrament, pray for us.

St Norbert, patron of unborn children and expectant mothers, pray for us.

+ Rt Rev Hugh Allan o.praem.