Reforming Efforts
The chief historical importance of the Windesheim Canons lies in their reforming work. This was not confined to the reform of monasteries, but was extended to the secular clergy and the laity, whom they especially sought to bring to greater devotion toward the Blessed Sacrament and more frequent communion. The chief of the Windesheim monastic reformers, Johann Busch (1399--1480), was admitted to Windesheim in 1419. At the chapter of 1424, Prior Johann Vos, who knew his own end was near, especially entrusted Busch and Hermann Kanten with the carrying out of his work of reform (Chron. Wind., 51). Grube gives a list of forty-three monasteries (twenty-seven Augustinian, eight Benedictine, five Cistercian and three Premonstratensian), in whose reform Busch had a share. Perhaps his greatest accomplishment was the winning to the side of reform of Dom Johann Hagen, O.S.B., for thirty years (1439–69) the Abbot of Bursfelde Abbey and the initiator of the Benedictine union known as the Bursfelde Congregation. In 1451, Busch was entrusted by his friend Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, papal legate of Pope Nicholas V, with the reform of the Augustinian monasteries in northern Germany, and with such labours he was busied till shortly before his death.
Similar work on a smaller scale was carried out by other Windesheimers. Some Protestant writers have claimed the Windesheim reformers as forerunners of the Protestant Reformation. This is a misapprehension of the whole spirit of the canons of Windesheim; their object was the reform of morals, not the overthrow of dogma. The conduct of the communities of Windesheim and Mount St. Agnes (near Zwolle), who preferred exile to the non-observance of an interdict published by Pope Martin V, exemplifies their spirit of obedience to the Holy See.
Though devastated by the destruction of the Reformation on the houses of the congregation in the Lowlands, the houses in German lands continued and a new spirit flourished there in the 17th century. The canons ceased leading purely contemplative lives and began to engage in pastoral activity, working to make the Catholic faith strong in the now largely-Protestant towns where they lived. At that time, they formed a union with the Canons Regular of the Lateran in Italy.
The events of the French Revolution worked to end the life of the congregation. First, their houses in the Lowlands under the control of Emperor Joseph II of Austria were closed. Then the armies of Revolutionary France invaded that territory and the last house, that of Frenswegen, was closed in 1809. The last member of the congregation, Clemens Leeder, died in Hildesheim in 1865.
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Famous quotes containing the words reforming and/or efforts:
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“Once we begin to appreciate that the apparent destructiveness of the toddler in taking apart a flower or knocking down sand castles is in fact a constructive effort to understand unity, we are able to revise our view of the situation, moving from reprimand and prohibition to the intelligent channeling of his efforts and the fostering of discovery.”
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