January 2024: Using this Time in our Lives to be Open to God’s Voice

January 2024 is “in the books” as they say, and it began for some with New Year’s resolutions. It seems that we like to keep time with the number of sunrises and sunsets in our lives by measuring out the days, 个月, 和年, and using those finite points to measure, 盘点, 提前计划. 我们为自己设定目标, 制定计划和决心, and look positively to the future with renewed energy and enthusiasm. 有时, we have had to deal with unexpected challenges in the year that has passed, and starting a new year is a challenge or may offer an opportunity to “start fresh.” 

当然, there is ongoing debate as to whether “time” is a just subjective convention - a way to explain the sequence of events that actually coexist in a broader view of existence - or, is time real; having flow, 方向, and duration from past to present to future? We can leave the debate and the scientific discussion that Einstein’s Theory of Relativity supports a Block Universe Theory to Robert Lawrence Kuhn and other scientific theorists, 虽然这是一门有趣的科学, 在我心中, 支持上帝的存在. 

Probably one of the most famous passages from the Bible about time is from the book of Ecclesiastes, 第三章. It is often read at funeral Masses and has been made popular by the song, “把, 转, 转,” written by Pete Seeger and sung by The Byrds:

The concluding paragraph of the chapter seems to support Block Universe Theory. 上帝是永恒的, yet we are meant to have different experiences throughout our lifetimes that form and shape us, 希望, 为上帝和彼此服务. 

Saint Norbert had distinct times in his life. One could say that he had four “seasons” of his life: as a youthful student and Church subdeacon of noble status, as a reformer and itinerant priest and preacher, as a founder of a new religious community, 作为教会的大主教. In each of these distinct phases of his life, he experienced transformative events that made his life’s journey somewhat unpredictable with unexpected, 而深刻的, 结果. 

Born into royalty during the High Middle Ages, Norbert lived a life of privilege. He was well-educated, articulate, and socially and politically connected. 他很富有, 就像大多数贵族家庭的孩子一样, he held a position in the Church as a subdeacon. He could have lived out his life in comfort and leisure, but he had a conversion experience that led him to become an ordained priest, give away all of his title and possessions, 宣扬教会改革, 和解, 与和平. 

Unsettled with the styles of religious life he observed - the monks in their monasteries and the canons (priests) in their churches - he founded a new community in Prémontré that would blend the communal life and rule of monasteries with the ministerial life of priests, who provided a spiritual life for the people through preaching the Word and celebrating the sacraments. Just a few short years after founding the community of Norbertines at Prémontré, 法国, he was called to serve as Bishop of Magdeburg. 另一个挑战, he managed to lay the foundations for the renewal of the Church in that part of the Holy Roman Empire, such that in future years after his death, the Church would expand into new lands and evangelize among the people there. 

900多年后, Norbert’s vision of an apostolic community still exists in Norbertine Abbeys around the world, 以及像皇冠博彩这样的学校, founded by or associated with these abbeys. The life of Saint Norbert is an example of the possibilities that our God places before us, 我们被召唤去探索它们. So, 在我们开始2024年新年之际, let us be open to God’s voice and to the possibilities of this “season” of our lives.

真诚地,

迈克尔一个. 马里内利Ed.D. ‘76

校长