Folia Theologica et Canonica 10. 32/24 (2021)
Sacra theologia
THE ROLE OF PATRISTIC AND MEDIEVAL SOURCES... 55 which he exercised with a prayerful spirit48. However, it is necessary to mention here the study of the sacred sciences, the regular meditation49, and the preaching of sermons based on the wealth of spiritual experience that these provided50. The way of life followed by St. Norbert also included strict observance of poverty (pauperitas) and peregrination (peregrinatio). This latter was a way of caring for the sick and poor and of preaching the Gospel as widely as possible.51 The founder’s spirituality, closely linked to the veneration of the Blessed Virgin Mary, also strongly influenced the early crystallization of the Norbertine spirituality.52 Jean-Hervé Foulon has reconstructed the ideal of canonical life in the time of St. Norbert by comparing Vita Norberti A53 and B54. He points out in his argument that the 11th and 12th centuries are precisely the period when the importance of the need for community life among priests, and its impact within the Church, particularly in the areas of liturgy and pastoral activity, was recognized in institutional form thanks to the Gregorian Reform. Foulon deals particularly with the uniqueness of the spirituality of life of the canons regular and its most important contemporary representatives, from St. Norbert of Xanten. Turning to an examination of the Vita Norberti A, he lengthily analyses the ideal of the canonical life: living in the world, but without any attachment to worldly things, so as to be attached not to worldly values but to those which are above (in contemporary terms: mediating in the world the joy and peace of the Kingdom of Heaven). In order to achieve this, in the light of the Gregorian Reform, a return to the apostolic life is seen by the canons of the Order as the basis of a daily way of life, which calls the attention and reflection of the faithful gathered around them to the golden age of the life of the early Church. However, it is also necessary to mention here the pilgrimages and the genre of itinerant-preaching. It can be seen that the priestly community which was formed around the church, the liturgical richness, and the monastic poverty, were already exercised from the beginning together with the preaching and the activity of spiritual guidance; indeed, the itinerant-preaching of individual members of the order developed in parallel with the establishment of the local community. In other words, the appearance of the ‘vita mixta’ is not only manifested within particular communities, but also in the different apostolic ac-48 Ardura, B.. Premonstratensi, nove secoli di storia e spiritualitä, 40-41. 49 Ibid., 41. 50 Ibid., 43. 51 Ibid., 44; in detail cf. Petit, F., La réforme des prétres au moyen age: pauvreté et vie commune (Chretiens de tous les temps 29), Paris 1968. 52 Ardura, B., Premonstratensi, nove secoli di storia e spiritualitä, 44-45. 53 Vita S. Norberti archiepiscopi magdeburgensis (Monumenta Germaniae Historica, Scriptorum 12), Hannover 1956. 663-703. 54 PLCLXX. 1257-1343.
