MEMORIAL OF SAINT NORBERT OF XANTEN, BISHOP AND SAINT MARCELLIN CHAMPAGNAT, RELIGIOUS ~ FEAST DAY: JUNE 6TH Today, we celebrate the Memorial of Saint Norbert of Xanten, Bishop and Saint Marcellin Champagnat, Religious. Through the intercession of our Blessed Mother Mary, Mother of the Church and the Saints on this feast day, Saint Norbert who was called the “Apostle of the Blessed Sacrament” and Saint Marcellin Champagnat, we humbly pray for us to have a great love for Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament, too. We pray for all expectant mothers, for safe delivery. We pray for peace, love and unity in our families and our world. We also pray for the poor and the needy, the sick and we continue to pray for the Church, the Clergy, for persecuted christians, for the conversion of sinners, and Christians all over the world. 🙏🏽
SAINT NORBERT OF XANTEN, BISHOP: St. Norbert of Xanten was called the “Apostle of the Blessed Sacrament”. Also known as Norbert Gennep, was bishop and founder of the Premonstratensian order of canons regular. St. Norbert was born at Xanten in the Rhineland, about 1080. The early part of his life was devoted to the world and its pleasures. He even entered upon the ecclesiastical state in a worldly spirit. He was ordained subdeacon, but fear of greater restraint prevented him from receiving higher orders. An accident became the occasion of a wonderful change of heart. A stroke of lightning frightened Norbert’s horse, whereupon he was thrown to the ground and knocked senseless; on regaining consciousness, he became a sincere penitent. He left the court and withdrew to Xanten, where he began to lead a retired and penitential life. A retreat the Saint made in the monastery of St. Sigebert, near Cologne, completed his conversion, and he spent two years preparing himself for the priesthood, which he received at Cologne. Soon after, he resigned his ecclesiastical benefices, sold his property and gave the proceeds to the poor, and traveled to Languedoc, where Pope Gelasius II was at that time.
St. Norbert went from place to place, preaching penance. Finally, he settled at Premontre, where he established the Order of Premonstratensians, which became very numerous even during the life of the holy founder. He was forced to accept the dignity of Archbishop of Magdeburg, about the year 1125, but in this exalted station he practiced the same austerity that had been familiar to him in the cloister. St. Norbert’s zeal effected a great reformation in his diocese, though, like other Saints, he had enemies in those to whom his life was a reproach. Together with St. Bernard he labored much to extinguish the disorders caused by the schism of the anti-Pope, Anacletus. Upon his return from a journey to Rome with Emperor Lothaire, he fell ill, and, after four months of sickness, died June 6, 1134. He was canonized in 1582 by Pope Gregory XII. He’s Patron Saint of peace, invoked during childbirth for safe delivery; Kingdom of Bohemia (now Czech Republic), Magdeburg.
PRAYER: O God, who made the Bishop Saint Norbert a servant of your Church outstanding in his prayer and pastoral zeal, grant, we ask, that by the help of his intercession, the flock of the faithful may always find shepherds after your own heart and be fed in the pastures of salvation. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever… Amen. Saint Norbert of Xanten… Pray for us🙏🏽
SAINT MARCELLIN CHAMPAGNAT, RELIGIOUS: St. Marcellin Champagnat (1789–1840) was born on May 20, 1789 to a peasant family near Lyons, France, in the same year the French Revolution erupted. He was a priest of the Society of Mary and the founder of the Little Brothers of Mary, a congregation of brothers devoted to the education of the young. He was the ninth child of a very pious catholic family and develpoed a very deep devotion to Mary as a young boy, which he learned from an aunt who was a religious. He also had a great capacity for work, which he learned from his father. Champagnat left school at the age of seven, and when, at the age of 14, he discovered through the help of a priest his own vocation to the priesthood, he had to begin to study again almost from scratch. Aware of his limitations, and against the advice of those around him, he entered the minor seminary and struggled to learn the fundaments of schooling. However, never losing sight of the will of God for him, he struggled through these difficult years with his eyes fixed on the horizon of God’s call. In the major seminary he became friends with the future Curé of Ars, Jean-Marie Vianney. He was ordained with his companions on July 22, 1816, the feast of St. Mary Magdalen. One of his desires was to found a congregarion devoted to the name of Mary in order to re-evangelize French society in the wake of the French Revolution. He saw his main task as the Christian education of the young, and this inclination was quickened and solidified upon encountering a dying young boy who had nearly no knowledge of the faith.
He founded the Little Brothers of Mary on January 2, 1817, when two young men decided to join him in his mission. He set about at once, in addition to his parish ministry, to educate uncultured young boys and turn them into ardent apostles of Jesus Christ, all the while living in abject poverty and trusting totally in the will of God, and the solicitous protection of the Virgin Mary, to whom he gave all, for the sake of the Lord Jesus. He made his school year flexible with the farming seasons, and the fees were affordable to the poor. His congregation, The Little Brothers of Mary, now called The Marist Brothers. They were dedicated to the education of youth, especially the most neglected. When Marcellin died his order had 48 establishments in France with 278 Brothers. Today there are 5,100 Brothers working in over 80 countries. St. Marcellin Champagnat died on June 6, 1840 at the age of 51, his health having been worn out by his immense workload and an illness. At his canonization in 1999 by Pope John Paul II, the Holy Father said of him, “St Marcellin proclaimed the Gospel with a burning heart. He was sensitive to the spiritual and educational needs of his time, especially to religious ignorance and the situations of neglect experienced in a particular way by the young.”
All to Jesus through Mary, and all to Mary for Jesus.” – St. Marcellin Champagnat
St. Marcellin Champagnat ~ Pray for us🙏🏽