New Vision – New Mission?
Order Spirituality after the General Chapter 2006
1 Goal of our canonical life
In an interview I was asked to give one word that expressed the nature of the
Premonstratensians. Off hand I could not express it in one word. Forty years ago, at the
chapter of renewal in Wilten (Innsbruck, Austria 1968/70) “communio” was found as
virtually the only key word. For us Premonstratensians life in community, life in the
monastery and working out from the community is fundamental and important.
1.1 Communio
The Constitutions describe this in a number of ways.1 For me one of the most important
passages in the Constitutions is where the ministry of building up an ecclesial and human
community in love is spoken of.
“This unity in Christ which must be fostered both within and outside our churches is their
primary apostolic mission. We are taught by St. Augustine that the unity of our
communities should overflow into a charity which embraces everyone.” (Nr. 68)
Precisely in this passage it is neither a matter of community for itself nor of community
alone. With the words “community in love” it is a question of more, first of all to live
this love interiorly with each other and on the way to God, and then let this love overflow
to others outwardly in our pastoral fields. Communio is not a goal in itself; it is rather a
“goal in order to”. The Augustinians have expressed this under the title “Community and
Mission”. I once chose the two terms “Reflection and Action”:2 being together in
community, being at home (reflecting, returning home, going within) and an outward
involvement for the people. For us this is mostly pastoral involvement. More radically
expressed one could say: the community is our first pastoral ministry. From this living
out of community people outside of the community benefit from our care and love. The
fact that we live both of these aspects with great commitment, and the fact that we do not
dismiss or give up the tension between the inside and the outside, distinguishes us from
diocesan priests, from secular canons, but also from monks. We can see this in the life of
Jesus: “He prayed on the mountains and healed in the villages!” Jesus lived from the
completely intimate and exclusive union with his Father, in his frequent nightlong prayer,
in his “being one with the Father”, but during the day he worked among the people
tirelessly as an itinerant preacher proclaiming and healing. As a prophet he stirred them
up and made demands on them. As a teacher he taught and accompanied them.
1.2 Primum propter quod
After my election as abbot general in 2003 I tried, in a sort of fundamental program,3 to
express our identity in the words:
1
Constitutions, especially Nr. 11-16 (One Heart and One Mind on the Way to God); 19-29 (Our
Communities; Living Examples for Community).
2
Better known is the formula of Taize “Struggle and Contemplation”.
3
Generalabt Thomas Handgrätinger, “Ansprache des neugewählten Generalabtes am Ende des
Wahlkapitels am 30.11.2003 in Rom” in: Communicantes, Heft 19 (2004), S. 82-87.
2
“Community needs communication, competent leadership and generativity.”
- Communication is everything in the community that works toward interaction,
exchange, correction and information, conversation and working together.
- Leadership and guidance – always safeguarded for us by the control and coresponsibility of the community by means of the council4 and canonry chapter5 – is the
ministry of holding the community together, urging it on repeatedly toward its common
goal, refocusing and uniting the often divergent energies, in short, strengthening the
centripetal energies.
- “Generativity” could be described as the ability, as an individual and as a community, to
be fruitful, to attract people and inspire them. It is the ability to lead them to believe and
to incite them to a life based on that belief; to lead them, each to their own life-vocation,
even to a religious life as a member of an order and/or as a priest.
As a result, four thematic areas are touched on. I would like to emphasize them.
However, they are also constitutive for our Order life. They are the building up of
community (communio), and the unity in a community and in the order (communicatio),
the right guidance and accompaniment (leadership, auctoritas) and the care for vocational
ministry and training (formatio). Finally, everything revolves around community life,
around the safeguarding of the structures and competencies, around the qualification of
the various duties and future security through a well-educated new generation. At the
beginning of the Rule even Augustine is unsurpassed and precise in his expression of
this:
“The first purpose for which you have come together is to live in unity in the house6 and
to be of one mind and one heart on the way to God.”7
Life in the monastery is life in community with the twofold (Augustinian) goal, the
building up of a fraternal form of life (communio) and the common striving for God
(contemplatio). Canonical monastery life adds to this the third (Norbertine) goal, the
building up of an ecclesial community ad extra, among the people, in parishes, at mission
stations or in other ministerial projects (actio). Our life is played out in this equilateral
triangle of “communio – contemplatio – actio” and we may not give up or shorten any of
these sides without running the danger of losing what is proper to us or weakening our
identity.
2 Vision – Mission – Statement8
Finally, let us refer to a new and important impetus, which took form slowly in the
Spirituality Commission of our Order.9 This was accepted by a great majority at the
General Chapter 2006 in Freising. It concerns the “Vision-Mission-Statement”, the
attempt to describe and to condense in a short, concise, almost lyrical form the nature of
4
Constitutions, Nr. 115-123 (The Council).
Constitutions, Nr. 95-100 (The Canonry Chapter).
6
Ps. 68: 7.
7
Acts 4: 32.
8
“Materia” of the General Chapter 2006 in Freising, M4-D (L-N-E-T-F).
9
Commissio de Vita Canonica et de Spiritu Ordinis (CVCSO) 2000-2006.
5
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our Order. You could also compare it with a model,10 a brief informative piece for
people who want to know about our Order. Just as in the business world the goal and
nature of a firm or a group of companies is described with a “corporate identity” so this
statement should describe and express the goal and nature of our Order. When this
statement was introduced during the General Chapter there was a rather long discussion
about concrete phrasing and the stressing of certain points. The individual canonries and
circaries of the Order had already spent a full year forming their opinion and dialoguing
regarding the content of this statement. Finally a vote was taken and the statement was
accepted by a great majority of the chapter fathers. Consequently the result of this vote
in the Order is able to find its way into all publications, websites, advertising material,
brochures, wherever our Order should be represented or depicted. It can serve as a basis
for discussion for house chapters and for days of recollection and be used as a theme for
those interested in the monastery and for monastery contact days (“come and see
weekends”). Now we can and should work with this “Vision-Mission-Statement”.
“Drawn by our merciful and Triune God,
we are called as baptized
to follow the poor and risen Christ
in a radical and apostolic way of life
according to the Gospel, the Rule of Saint Augustine
and the charism of Saint Norbert,
the founder of our Premonstratensian Order.
Our way of life is marked by:
a lifelong seeking after God through fraternal community,
a never-ending conversion by giving ourselves to the church
of our profession in communion with the self-emptying of Christ,
in imitation of Mary pondering God’s Word,
and in ceaseless prayer and service at the altar.
From the choir and altar we go to serve the human family
in a spirit of simplicity, hospitality, reconciliation and peace
for the benefit of the Church and the world,
especially where Christ is found among the poor, the suffering,
and among those who do not know him.
We pray that what God’s Spirit has begun in us
may be made perfect in the day of Christ Jesus.”
It could be beneficial to speak about this statement in detail. Some clarification should be
attempted for each section.
Lukas Dikany, “Leitbilddiskussion im Prämonstratenserorden” in: Communicantes, Heft 19 (2004), S.
23-36.
10
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2.1 Vocation
Fundamental to our vocation as Premonstratensians, as with each Christian vocation, is
baptism. The choosing and adoption on the part of God, as well as being received into
this interior divine community, precedes all our seeking, yearning and responding. “You
have not chosen me, but I have chosen you” (Jn 15: 16). We celebrate this adoption by
God in the baptism of a newborn child. It is God’s love that calls us into life. It is God’s
love that calls us into his faith community, the Church. It is God’s love that summons us
finally to a more radical following in the life of an order. Our life is a response, an echo,
a reaction to a divine initiative. However, for that reason it is not less original and
authentic, but unique and free from the bottom of one’s heart. Our life as
Premonstratensians11 stands and falls with our close union with Jesus Christ, the “poor
and risen Christ”, as does the life of every Christian and every consecrated religious
worldwide. However, we want something of the radical spirit of the early Church to be
sensed in our communities. It was in the early Church where people noticed in
amazement: “See how they love one another!”12
As Premonstratensians we have our own history and tradition beginning with this early
Church spirit as Augustine understood it and described it in his Rule. We continue
through the interpretation, the charism and the way of life of an aggressive and radical
itinerant preacher Norbert who could inspire people and attract followers. Finally we
move on to the concrete shaping of a house in a definite place and time. Our houses are
not only characterized by history and tradition but also by always setting out with fresh
innovation. Likewise we are personally formed and influenced by particular confreres
and their “creative fidelity”. All that together goes to make up our human, ecclesial,
consecrated religious and finally our Premonstratensian vocation. And this in turn is
colored by the shading of the individual canonry. Our vocation is first of all a call, a
challenge and an acceptance by the “merciful and triune God”. Then, thanks to his grace,
we want to respond generously to him with our life as Christians and consecrated
religious and acknowledge him throughout our life.
2.2 Vision
From our call by God and our resultant response of entering a religious community it is
now necessary to translate our vision of a religious vocation, our specific view of regularcanonical life, into a concrete way of living. We must do this both as an individual as
well as a community. Four practices mark this “fraternal (or sisterly) community”.
These have developed out of our Order’s tradition. They are: 1) lifelong seeking after
God, 2) never-ending conversion of our life, 3) reflection on the Word of God as Mary
could fulfill it, and 4) ceaseless prayer and service at the altar. We could also say that
these are the four milestones for our contemplative life in community.
2.2.1 The lifelong seeking after God paraphrases once again this dialogic process that
begins with baptism and, we hope, continues until our death. It is the dialogic process of
being called and answering. It is the seeking after him who calls us by name, who knows
and loves us. It is the seeking after him who gives himself in a way that is not under our
11
Canons Regular, Prämonstratenser-Chorherren, Norbertiner, Norbertine Fathers, norbertijnen,
norbertanki, white canons, chanoines de Prémontré.
12
Tertullian, Apologeticum 39, 7.
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control and who then withdraws again. It is the seeking after him who is nearer to us
than we are to ourselves and who, being unobtainable, surpasses everything and us in his
transcendence. Here lies the greatest happiness and the deepest mystery of our life and
our vocation, with which we never come to an end and with which we will never be
complete. God is the total other whose splendor not even the heavens know how to
praise, and who at the same time is the one deeply dwelling within us. “For in him we
live, we move and we exist” (Acts 17: 28). Here we touch on the contemplative-mystical
dimension of our being Christian, which Paul could only express in a stammering way:
“It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me” (Gal. 2: 14). It is seeking and finding,
finding and seeking anew, as Augustine says it. It is never possessing and holding, rather
maturing and starting over from the beginning.
2.2.2 The never-ending conversion is already touched on in this search movement. In
our formula of profession this ministry almost has the character of a fourth vow, the
“conversio morum”.13 You could also use this process of conversion as a heading above
the three vows. This never-ending conversion and renewal process should play itself out
in the three areas of: a poor simple lifestyle (poverty); listening, individually and
communally to the call from God (obedience); and, finally, a fraternal form of life that
renounces partnership, marriage and children (celibacy dedicated to God, castitas). Here
too we never reach the top of the ladder.14 Often enough we must begin anew from
below and work upwards again. In the Constitutions this “conversion of life”15 is
described by preparedness to forgive a confrere from whom we have distanced ourselves.
The confrere is the touchstone, the community the practice field, our relationship to God
the destination point of all ascetical, moral and contemplative effort. The strongest
expression of this preparedness for conversion is the prostration during profession, this
complete handing over to God (trado meipsum), this complete offering to God and to this
concrete community (offerens) and this permanent conversion of my personal life and our
community way of life (conversio). Here is expressed in a symbolic and liturgical way
our approximation to the “self-divesting and kenotic Christ”.16 It is only about the
imitation of Jesus and about the humble agreement to follow his path, the outline of his
life, therefore becoming more and more like the poor, obedient, chaste Lord.
2.2.3 As a model for this seeking and drawing closer Mary is placed before our eyes.
She is always presented to us as a listening, reading, reflecting woman who also seems to
call to us: “Whatever he tells you, do it” (Jn 2: 5). The life of Mary centers around the
Word of God, so much so that it is assumed in her image: “And the Word was made
flesh” (Jn 1:14) through Mary who has opened herself completely to this call, this love,
this grace and thus becomes the gateway of the divine reality in this world. That is the
virginal and motherly side of this unique woman. Can we emulate or imitate this?
However, don’t we know the phrase: “And if Christ were born a thousand times but not
in you, the world would remain miserably lost”. Mary is mother of the faith and mother
of the Church. She is the model for any birth of God in us and from us. We may allow
13
Constitutions, Nr. 39.
In Eastern monasticism the ladder is a symbol for the ascetical struggle and striving.
15
Constitutions, Nr. 41.
16
Cf. Phil. 2: 5-11.
14
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ourselves confidently to be led and directed by her. There is no other way than to reflect
on God’s Word as she did and to ponder it in our heart again and again.
2.2.4 It is precisely in this contemplative-meditative dimension that our prayer takes
place and deepens. It is not the abundance of words, but rather the joining together in the
never-ending praise of God, which Mary has already intoned in her Magnificat. It is here
that our festive choral prayer has its deepest source, in the joyful cry of Mary “My soul
praises the greatness of the Lord” (Lk 1: 46), in the cheerful cry of the Lord “I praise you,
Father, Lord of heaven and earth” (Lk 10: 21), and in the grateful cry of the Apostles, that
they were allowed to suffer injustice for the Lord. And from this grateful song of praise
there also grows a solemn liturgy constituted by the Lord: “Do this in memory of me”
(Lk 22: 19), which expands to the cosmic and heavenly liturgy of the never-ending
worship and glorification of God. Service at the altar in all purity, cleanliness, honor and
splendor is a direct “inheritance and ministry” of our Father Norbert. According to St.
Benedict nothing should be preferred to this “divine office”.
2.3 Mission
So that the vision not slip into the visionary, it is necessary that from this encounter there
be a mission. “Contemplata aliis tradere”, “to pass on to others what is reflected on in
contemplation” is the motto of the Dominicans. There is no encounter with the divine
that would not become mission. All biblical reports about experiences of God indicate
this. Whoever falls under God’s influence receives a task, a mandate, a responsibility, a
mission: “Go to my brothers and announce to them: I go to my Father and your Father,
to my God and your God” (Jn 20: 17b). That is the mandate to Mary Magdalene after her
encounter with the Risen One. Mary Magdalene, a woman, becomes the first messenger
of the resurrection. That remains the basic mission for us as Christians who were
baptized into the crucified and risen Lord Jesus Christ. As Premonstratensians in the
white habit, which recalls the angel of the resurrection in the Gospel, we feel especially
obligated to this mission.
The Statement presents us with four mission areas: our service for reconciliation and
peace, our service for the building up of the church and community, our service for the
poor, suffering and our mission to those who do not yet know God – four milestones for
our pastoral, missionary and active work
2.3.1 Our service for reconciliation and peace is oriented toward St. Norbert, whom our
American confreres like to refer to as “minister of peace and concord”. His work was
noted for the ability to reconcile people, to establish peace where groups were divided, to
take up once again the threads of dialogue and to come to workable solutions. Following
the footsteps of our founder would give us here even today a broad field of action –
beginning in one’s own monastery – where in this regard there is a good grounding of
conflict and reconciliation to be built up and nourished. This is also the case in parishes
where we consistently encounter competitive groups or divergent interests, in schools
where violence and riots multiply. However, peace work could also be an essential
content of our parish ministry in order to assist people toward a reconciled inwardness,
toward a life in peace with oneself and the world, but above all in peace with God, the
God of peace and reconciliation. We should not leave the field of “inner healing” to
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therapists but, taking up the angels’ message of peace, “and on earth peace with those in
his grace” (Lk 2: 14), we should much more announce true peace to people: “Peace I
leave to you, my peace I give to you”.
Peace work today is an important part of all political work. Dialogue among religions,
the integration process of various cultures, the checking of hunger, sickness and
exploitation are only a few key words in this effort. What is our contribution here as
Christians and as disciples of Norbert?
2.3.2 Our mission for the building up of church and community follows directly from the
vision of a contemplative way of life. What we strive for and live, what we form in love
should overflow into the community, into the church where we are sent out to people.
“Sent as He” was the pathbreaking article of Abbot Petrus Broeckx of Postel for the
General Chapter 1982 in Oostmalle.17 As Premonstratensians we are church builders.
Blessed Hugh, the first abbot and abbot general of Prémontré, is usually depicted with a
model of a church. As a community we should build up the church in the local
community as well, in the parishes, in the various pastoral fields of action. “We should
serve the well-being of the church and the world”. That is very generally expressed and
leaves much room for play, as we react to the demands and signs of the time and wish to
respond to them.18 Two directions are conceivable here. First of all we could actually go
out and become involved in working with people on the spot, as has in fact been the case
for centuries through parish ministry in the area around the abbeys. Or we could invite
the people into our houses, take them into a guest-friendly and modest atmosphere and
house and accompany them for a time.
Furthermore our choir prayer and our Eucharistic celebrations as canons are not private
monastic liturgies, but should be open to the faithful. We pray and celebrate as church, in
the church and for the church.19
2.3.3 The question of poverty in our Order life will never be completely answered. The
vow of poverty remains more a goad, an exhortation and a challenge. St. Norbert acted
very radically and step-by-step gave up all personal and family possessions in order “to
follow the naked Christ naked”. A hundred years later St. Francis would again radicalize
this detachment from all possessions. Poverty and need is of itself not a virtue. But this
detaching oneself from material dependency is a way that can lead us to greater solidarity
with the poor, to more sharing, to more sensitivity to real poverty in our surroundings. In
addition to glaring material need there is also a spiritual poverty and wretchedness, a
spiritual need, a spiritual starvation among people. The needs and the sufferings are
diverse and often overtax our possibilities. But there is still the Word of the Lord that is
directed to us precisely in this area: “Give them to eat” (Mk 6: 37). Give these people
what they want and cry out for. They want food, education, better medical care, more
attentive accompaniment in all the crises and vicissitudes of their life, but they also want
peace, reconciliation, equality and justice.
Petrus Broeckx, “Gesandt wie Er” in : Thomas Handgrätinger (Hrsg.), Gesandt wie Er. Der Orden der
Prämonstratenser-Chorherrn heute. Würzburg, 1984, S. 167-185.
18
Constitutions, Nr. 70-72.
19
Constitutions, Nr. 56-58.
17
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2.3.4 The final mission task, which the Statement formulates, again takes up the life
work of St. Norbert. During his life Norbert remained an itinerant preacher who
untiringly was on the way to people in order to deliver his message. Immediately after
his conversion he did this throughout half of Europe, then as founder of the Order, as
archbishop, and finally as imperial politician. His view extended far to the east where he
considered beginning a missionary offensive from Magdeburg and creating a new church
province. To announce Christ to people who do not know Christ, still do not know him
or no longer know him, is today not less relevant and important. The faith seems to
evaporate, the transmission of the faith seems no longer to succeed, and the knowledge of
the faith seems slowly to dry up. What would a Norbert do today? Surely even today he
would break forth from rigid cloistered walls and take himself on the road to people.
Today many complain about a “sedentary church” with innumerable conferences,
meetings and discussions. How would a dynamic and pilgrim church look, a church that
is more interested in people than in itself? Where are the missionary zeal and the
Pentecostal breaking out as when the disciples, full of the Holy Spirit, broke open the
doors and hastened to people and spoke to them in their own languages? Today this
mission could begin right in front of the door of our house, but it must also go worldwide.
2.4 “Dies venit”
The final segment of the Statement takes us back to the liturgy of our own profession
ceremony, where we sang three times full of dedication and idealism: “Complete, O
God, what you have worked in us, through your gracious mercy”.20 All our effort and
longing leads to prayer and petition for mercy and support that God himself may bring
the work that was begun to completion. It is the common request for the Holy Spirit to
bring this about on the day when Christ once again appears. Our Order life has a
dynamic and a perspective that we live for him to whom we have given ourselves, that
we wait for him to whom we have completely dedicated ourselves, that we might be able
to stand before him who has called us into his following. The church as a whole lives in
a post-Pentecostal age, in a condition of vigilance and longing, growth and maturation in
which the active inspiring role belongs to the Holy Spirit. He will make all things new
and will renew the face of the earth. This renewal is prayed for and implored. Thus the
group of Apostles – who gathered around Mary, and persisted constantly in prayer in the
upper room (Acts 1: 12-14), who then were caught up by storm and fire to become seized
by the Spirit of God – is the enduring model for our common life, for our common prayer
and for our missionary work among people.
3. Conclusion
Does this “Vision-Mission-Statement” now bring something new that we previously had
not known, a “new vision”, a “new mission”? The Statement breathes fully our
Premonstratensian spirituality, contains something of the early church radicalism and
above all breathes the spirit of St. Norbert, to whom credit is due precisely in his reform
efforts to actualize the spirit of the early church. This return to the beginning of the
church, to the first love, he wanted to have as the basis for his new form of life of canons
20
Constitutions, Appendix I, The Order of Religious Profession in the Order of Canons Regular of
Prémontré, p. A-24.
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regular. Therefore he adopted the Rule of Augustine because he saw in Augustine the
best preserver and authority of the early church’s charisma.
Appealing and new is surely the vivid language, the concise clarity, the reduction of the
“quinque viae”21 to four basic visions, the stronger accentuation on the missionary aspect
vis-à-vis people, who do not know Christ (any more). The prelude with the theology of
baptism makes people sit up and take notice. This is the foundation of our entire
Christian life in the Order; this, as well as the Pentecostal-pneumatic arrangement, which
must embrace our entire life in the Order, beginning with baptism and hopefully
completed on the day of the Lord. For me it is significant that this statement ends in a
prayer for completion in Christ through the Holy Spirit. And therefore here too a prayer
should stand at the end.
“God of mercy, in your eternal wisdom you called your servant, Norbert, to set off on a
journey of faith as itinerant preacher, as initiator of our Order of Prémontré, as
archbishop in Magdeburg, with your word of truth in his heart and on his lips. Norbert
invited us – men and women, priests and lay people – to join him in the canonical life in
service to the people of God. As we remember his vision and mission we ask you to
breathe the Spirit of the risen Christ into our hearts and minds. Re-create us, so that we
might faithfully and joyfully proclaim the gospel of reconciliation and peace through the
same Christ our Lord. Amen.”22
+ Thomas Handgrätinger
Abate Generale
21
1) Laus Dei in choro 2) Cultus Eucharisticus 3) Cultus Beatae mariae Virginis 4) Zelus animarum 5)
Jugis poenitentiae spiritus.
22
Cf. the prayer for the 800 year celebration of Prouilhe. Liam Walsh OP, “Light for the Church”, in
Religious Life Review 45 (2006) XI-XII, p. 357-382.