I today would focus on one particular verse, “Blessed are the Peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God.”
I would like to briefly discuss and draw what I hope are helpful lessons from the life of someone who has been an important part of my own study and research in medieval history, namely Norbert of Xanten, who lived in the twelfth century, and was a great reformer of the clergy, founding a new religious order known as the Premonstratensians (their most famous abbey in Scotland being Dryburgh in the borders, where Sir Walter Scott is buried), and later became archbishop of Magdeburg in Germany. This Norbert came as we shall see to have a reputation as the great peacemaker of his troubled times.
Norbert was born around the year 1080, in Xanten, near the modern German-Dutch border on the west bank of the Rhine. He was an aristocrat of the highest level, with close relationships on both side of his family to the German and French royal houses. Around the time his father and brother went off to fight in the first crusade, Norbert, who seemed to have been a pleasant, handsome fun loving and rather spoiled young man, began his own family destined predictable path as a cleric in the German church, finding himself before long in the retinue of the Emperor. His rather steady but unremarkable careerist trajectory seems to have been disturbed when he accompanied the Emperor when during one phase of the long power struggle with the papacy known as the Investiture controversy, the German ruler invaded Italy, took Rome by force, and imprisoned the elderly pope in hopes of convincing him to accept the emperor’s point of view. Norbert we know visited the pope in prison, and seems to have become disillusioned with the whole type of life he was living in the emperor’s service. When they returned to Germany he left the imperial service and refused promotion in the Church, and soon underwent a radical conversion and call to a serious religious life. He gradually divested himself of his wealth and began what today we would call vocation discernment, living in turn with hermits and various types of monks and canons, before deciding to become a poor, wandering preacher. It is a fascinating story, which perhaps I can tell in more detail at another time. While Norbert had many enemies who distrusted his radical way of life, he also had friends among the bishops, and eventually received papal permission for his way of life. He founded a group of religious communities centered on the new abbey of Premontre in France, who became known as “white canons” due to the colour of their habits. As the Cistercians under the leadership of Bernard reformed the monks, so Norbert, his friend, helped spark reform of clergy all over Europe. Even St Bernard, not known for being self effacing, considered Norbert to be the finest preacher of the age. Eventually Norbert was made, to his own reluctance and chagrin, archbishop of Magdeburg on the eastern frontier of Germany, where until his death he supported missions, church reform and tried to mediate in continuing struggles between the popes and German emperors that caused so much distress in those days.
In what ways was Norbert a peacemaker? In good medieval fashion, I would suggest three, all of which have potential relevance in principle for every Christian in every age, regardless of the differences in state of life and circumstances.
First of all he allowed himself to be guided on the road to inner peace by surrendering himself to God. Through a process of gradual and painstaking discernment, punctuated by dramatic moments, He let Christ take over his life; Norbert gradually came to see that if he became poor in spirit, and let God lead him, his former way of life could be left behind and he could be transformed from the conventional into something that was genuinely centered on God, and because it was centered on God, he came to see that he needed to love others, and to bring to them the peace he had found within. This inner peace, a purity of heart centered upon God and manifested in charity, is something the Beatitudes direct us toward, something we are called to aspire to. As St Jerome puts it about the verse we are considering this morning:
“The peacemakers are called blessed who first make peace within their own heart, and then between their dissident brethren. For what does it profit you to make peace between others, while vice is at war within your own heart?”
And that is just what Norbert did. After his conversion and years of prayer and recollection, at peace now with himself and God, the focus of Norbert’s itinerant preaching became peace in a second sense, the restoration of hope, and reconciliation in the villages he visited throughout France, Germany and the Low Countries. He would enter into a village, and in those days of feudal violence, he often would attempt to reconcile warring and broken families. We are told how when the villagers knew he was approaching, they would ring the church bells, and children would run out and escort him to the village. He would often preach and hold meetings with those at odds with one another, and after celebrating the Eucharist with them present, would have them make peace over the relics of the saints. More humbly but no less significantly, he would counsel and help reconcile the distressed, the ostracized, and those in need of healing for one reason or another, often women who had been marginalized and accused of demonic possession. He also ministered to the powerful, often stricken by their own form of alienation and inner turmoil. One great example was the German nobleman Count Godfrey of Cappenburg. Godfrey had led a troubled life as a warlike nobleman, and in those tumultuous times had burned down the local cathedral. Dejected in remorse and alienation, he eventually joined Norbert, gave over his wealth, and found peace as a simple lay brother as Norbert’s dear spiritual friend and confidante. For all of these activities of Norbert, we are told by Norbert’s early biographer that while traveling through France,
“the next day early in the morning he rose and departed for another village not far away in order to preach to the people. He was very devoutly received here because they had heard he was a bearer of the Word of God and a bringer of tranquil peace.”
Not a bad epitaph!
Thirdly. When he was made archbishop of Magdeburg, essentially a prince archbishop and one of the most important advisors in the Empire, Norbert found himself called to be a peacemaker on yet another level, what we might call today the realm of international politics. The intense conflicts between the popes and emperors continued, with all the distress this brought to people of all levels of society, and Norbert found himself in the often unenviable position of trying to keep things together, or at least from further deterioration. In this he was for the most part successful, but like all great peacemakers, it did not make him universally popular, and I think that is one of the reasons that despite his widely acknowledged sanctity and that he founded one of the major medieval religious orders, the Premonstratensians, which at their height before the Reformation numbered 600 abbeys from Ireland to the Holy Land, he would not be formally canonized until over four centuries after his death. Peacemakers, as the sermon on the Mount brings home so powerfully and poignantly, are not always appreciated, however much they are always desperately needed.
St Norbert and his followers tried to live out the Beatitudes, as best they could with God’s help. They knew there was much darkness in their own hearts and in the world around them, and led by a great and inspired teacher, they hoped to bring the light of Christ wherever they went. As one early Norbertine put it, they prayed, trained and worked that they might be lanterns illuminating the shadows wherever they went, whatever they did. Like their master Christ, they were called, as they often put it, docere verbo et exemplo, to teach by word and example, to let their deeds and teaching go together.
I learn from St Norbert of Xanten that if we really want to be effective peacemakers on all levels, then we must begin in our own hearts, with ourselves. Then we can turn to our families, and our own relationships, in churches, schools, the workplace, to reconciling the alienated, broken and tender souls and hearts within our own, every day reach. Then, when and if we are called, to discern how to do this in a more public arena, perhaps for a few even on the scale of Norbert, perhaps for most of us as engaged citizens. But we will not be effective in bringing peace to others if we do not allow God to bring it to our own hearts first. Follow the previous beatitudes, if we want to know what it takes to be a peacemaker. Listen to the parables, for they will tell us that if we really want to work for the kingdom of God, we must first recognize and accept and nurture it within ourselves. Then our efforts as true peacemakers, following St Norbert and countless others, from John the Baptist to our own day, will be modeled and centered on Christ, who as it says in the last words of the song of Zachary, sung to his newborn baby son John the Baptist, the canticle Benedictus which the church sings every single morning in her common prayer throughout the world,
And thou, Child, shalt be called the Prophet of the Highest : for thou shalt go before the face of the Lord to prepare his ways;
To give knowledge of salvation unto his people : for the remission of their sins,
Through the tender mercy of our God : whereby the day-spring from on high hath visited us;
To give light to them that sit in darkness, and in the shadow of death : and to guide our feet into the way of peace. Amen.
Festina Lente 