July 2006 - St. Michael's Abbey

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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."
Saints Adrian and James, Norbertine Martyrs “Presbyterian pirate” is not exactly an expression that evokes terror nowadays on Balboa Island, but in sixteenth century Holland, Calvinist blue and blackbeards were a frightening scourge along the coast of the North Sea. In the little village of Munster in summer of 1572, these bible-toting pirates captured the parish clergy: two Norbertine canons from the abbey of Middleburg, Adrian Jansen and James Lacoupe. They knocked on the door one July night claiming to need the sacraments for a dying man. They dragged the two priests to prison with nineteen other priests and brothers from neighboring villages. Among these were Franciscans, Dominicans, Augustinian canons and secular priests. An abandoned cloister near the village of Gorcum then became their jail. In return for denying the primacy of the Pope of Rome and the Real Presence of the Savior in the Blessed Sacrament, they were offered their freedom with hefty pensions for life. If not, they would be cruelly martyred by hanging, their bodies dissected, and the parts sold for the confection of homeopathic remedies. And so it happened. There are eyewitness accounts of the pirates’ sale of the martyred priests’ organs and melted fat. The chronicler says of the persecutors “They were not only barbarous and inhumane, they were stupid and superstitious.” Two of the total of twenty-one gave in and were spared. The rest were hanged on July 9, 1572 and so became the Holy Nineteen Martyrs of Gorcum. They were canonized by Blessed Pius IX on 29 July 1867. There is a famous painting of their martyrdom in the Vatican Museum, a reproduction of which hangs in the abbey refectory, appropriately enough since St. Adrian is the patron of our provisor Fr. Adrian. St. James had himself for a while left the Church and become a Calvinist traveling preacher, writing anti-Catholic tracts. When his dying father pleaded with him he returned to the faith and to Norbertine religious life. He accepted his martyrdom lovingly in reparation for his earlier betrayal. May the Holy Martyrs keep us strong in our true faith! Norbertine Saints Patron saints are chosen as special protectors or guardians over areas of life that are important to us. The saints listed are either Norbertine saints or patrons of the confreres of St. Michael’s. July 1 • Blessed Junipero Serra July 9 • SS. Adrian and James, O.Praem. July 11 • St. Benedict Patron saint of farmers and monks July 13 • St. Eugene July 14 • St. Hroznata the prophet, O.Praem. July 20 • St. Elias July 21 • St. Victor July 24 • St. Charbel August 1 • St. Alphonsus Mary Patron saint of arthritics, confessors, moralists and the scrupulous August 8 • St. Dominic Patron saint of astronomers and scientists August 10 • St. Lawrence Patron saint of archivists, brewers, butchers, comedians and cooks August 11 • Venerable John Henry Newman August 14 • St. Maximilian Kolbe Patron saint of drug addicts, families, prisoners and journalists August 20 • St. Bernard Patron saint of beekeepers and candlemakers August 24 • St. Nathaniel Patron saint of bookbinders, cobblers and those suffering from neurological diseases August 28 • St. Augustine Patron saint of brewers, printers and theologians September 3 • St. Gregory Patron saint of educators, musicians and students September 8 • St. Alan de la Roche September 13 • St. John Chrysostom Patron saint of epileptics, orators and preachers September 14 • St. Robert Bellarmine Patron saint of canon lawyers, catechists and catechumens Question and Answer Q Why does it say in the missalette that we should all bow together at the words about God becoming Man in the creed? A The Roman rite of the Church since at least the 10 th century–in the 12 th these customs are called by Peter of Cluny as being “already of long use”–has directed and still directs us as a general rule to make some reverence with our body for the three key mysteries of our faith, namely the Trinity, the Incarnation, and the Real Presence. The liturgy directs us to bow our heads whenever the three persons of the Holy Trinity are mentioned together, to acknowledge the Lord’s Incarnation by bowing the head at the mention of His Holy Name and bowing the body during the creed, to express our belief in the Lord’s Real Presence in the Holy Eucharist by bowing the knee before the tabernacle, and by making an appropriate reverence at the time of Holy Communion. We should cherish these often forgotten customs and follow them. September 21 • St. Matthew Patron saint of carpenters, reformed alcoholics and tailors September 29 • St. Michael Patron saint of ambulance drivers; police officers and soldiers September 29 • St. Raphael Patron saint of the blind, doctors, nurses, pharmacists and travelers September 30 • St. Jerome Patron saint of archeologists, archivists, librarians and translators October 4 • St. Francis Patron saint of animals, environmentalists and zoologists October 18 • St. Luke Patron saint of artists, doctors, sculptors,surgeons and unmarried men October 20 • Blessed James Kern, O.Praem. October 24 • St. Anthony Claret Patron saint of the Catholic press and weavers October 26 • St. Gilbert, O.Praem.
Page 1 and 2: JULY 2006 The St.Michael Messenger
Page 3 and 4: Graduation 2006 Congratulations As
Page 5: Senior Reflections Kyle Abramson -

July 2006 - St. Michael's Abbey

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