July 2006 - St. Michael's Abbey

From the Hilltop
News from St. Michael’s Abbey ■
www.abbeynews.com
Path to Priesthood
The path to priesthood through the formation
program at St. Michael’s is a challenging and
exciting process bringing young men from the
postulancy through to the solemn profession
and ordination to the priesthood.
1. Postulancy: During this initial, four month
stage of formation, postulants reside at the abbey
and participate in the life of the community. This
introduces the new seminarians into the lifestyle
of a consecrated religious and assists them in
discerning their vocation more clearly. Vested
with the white Norbertine habit, they are given
a new name as they formally enter religious
life as novices on Christmas Eve.
2. Novitiate: For nearly two years, seminarians
focus their attention on spiritual formation and
continue to be introduced more fully into the life
of the abbey community. Academic formation
focuses on a more complete understanding of
Catholic doctrine, spirituality, liturgy, the essentials
of consecrated religious life and the specific
identity and history of the Norbertine Order.
3. Juniorate: Seminarians make their first
profession of temporary vows for a period of
three years. They begin their formal ecclesiastical
studies in preparation for priestly ordination.
Theological studies are done in Rome. After
this time, juniors make their solemn profession
of vows; after which, juniors are ordained to
the diaconate and usually spend one year as
a deacon before ordination to the priesthood.
History of St. Michael’s Part III
"Go to school, get a job", and, "As you wish, Sire!" New mottos for an old
abbey, or the two-hundred-year-old reason why we have a Preparatory School
After the Turks were driven out with the help of Austria, it was time for the Order in the
Kingdom of Hungary to be restored. A zealous Austrian abbot, Franz Schoellingen redeemed
several monasteries. By 1702 confreres had returned to Csorna. Unfortunately for Abbot Franz
his generosity had broken the bank of his own little abbey, and so he entrusted our Mother
abbey to an abbey in nearby Moravia. During this period the confreres were German-speaking:
no Hungarians or Czechs need apply!
Things would change radically, however, thanks to the church reform policies of the
Freemason "sacristan Emperor" Joseph II. Instead of destroying all the abbeys and killing
or imprisoning the confreres as the French were doing, he pursued a secularist policy and
put all the Church’s institutions (and most of all lands and money) squarely in the hands of
state bureaucrats. Call it an iron-fist-in-a-velvet-glove version of "Catholic lite." He suppressed
hundreds of monasteries, including ours in 1786, consolidated their members in bigger
communities, and then told them that if they were to continue they would have to "do
something useful" for the state: like run the schools. Not bad, ultimately, since it saved
the day for Csorna, which was reopened in 1802 under the condition that we run schools.
Hungarian confreres were now accepted. Thirty thousand acres of farm land were restored
to the Norbertines to finance their two boarding schools (no need then for tuition or
fundraising!), all of which remained until the Communists came to power after WWII. Fleeing
to freedom in America, the fathers continued their apostolate, now free from states with total
power…but now I’m getting ahead of the story. Wait ’till you hear about the twentieth century!
Guest Speaker
In May, the community heard Dr. Serge Trifkovic, author of Sword of the Prophet, trace the history of the persecution and
martyrdom of Christians under the various totalitarian regimes, especially the Bolsheviks of the 20th century, and point out
that this persecution killed more Christians, mostly in the East, in a few decades than all previous persecutions put together.
Outside Bolshevism, some 160,000 Christians have been killed every year since 1990, in the Sudan, Egypt, Pakistan,
India and the Balkans - victims of Islamic aggression. That such attacks are rarely reported in the media Trifkovic attributes
to the present weakness in the West. Dr. Trifkovic said that the legacy of these New Martyrs is precious, "because in this 21st
century it will be the turn of Western Christians to experience martyrdom."