By Jacqueline Gilvard Landry
Voice correspondent

St. Michael’s Abbey of the Norbertine Order, an autonomous, monastic community in the Southern California Diocese of Orange, was established in 1961, but its roots go back to 1121 when St. Norbert of Xanten founded the order at Prémontré in modern-day France.

Singing the liturgy every day is an integral part of the Norbertine vocation.

Members are Canons Regular who live in community and devote themselves to the solemn celebration of the liturgy, including Mass and the Divine Office, explained Father Ambrose Criste, novice master and vocations director. “So we’re singing all day, every day,” he said.

Father Ambrose said there are 69 members, including both priests and seminarians, at the abbey. Today they are among approximately 1,200 Norbertines, also known as Premonstratensians, throughout Europe, the Americas, Africa and Australia. The order follows the Rule of St. Augustine.

The abbey was founded in Silverado (Orange County) by seven Hungarian refugees from the Abbey of St. Michael at Csorna, Hungary, who fled their country in 1950. They regrouped in California in 1957, and opened a permanent monastic community and novitiate in 1961 on the current site. In 1976, St. Michael’s became an independent Norbertine priory and was elevated to abbatial status by Rome in 1984.

Abbot Eugene Hayes was elected in 1995.

The course of study for the priesthood takes about 10 years, said Father Ambrose. Typically fewer than half who begin the process make it to ordination.

Yearly, up to nine men usually enter the seminary at St. Michael’s. “Already we’ve accepted three” he said, including former A’s prospect Grant Desme. (See related story.) Two others are in the process of completing their applications and several others have expressed interest.

Newly ordained Father Ambrose Criste celebrates his first Mass. Father Ambrose is now the abbey’s vocation director.

“We’ve received people into our monastery from all different walks of life—from the university, from very successful careers, from simple work lives—and everyone arrives here the same,” said Father Ambrose who left Oxford University before completing his Rhodes scholarship to enter the abbey.

About half of the abbey’s confreres are from California, with the others coming from Canada, Mexico, Viet Nam, and the Philippines, Father Ambrose said. The abbey accepts men aged 18 through 30; the median age of current membership in the community is 42. “It’s a very young community,” he said.

In addition to its liturgical emphasis, the abbey’s principal apostolate is its adjacent boys’ residential high school, St. Michael’s Preparatory School.

Members of the order teach at the prep school as well as other high schools in the Orange Diocese and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles. Some are chaplains to elementary schools and two members serve as college chaplains. Seminarians lead an annual five-week boys’ summer camp on the abbey grounds.

The priests say Sunday Mass at about 33 parishes. They also provide pastoral support to the Sisters of Tehachapi convent, which the abbey established in 1996 in the Fresno Diocese.

St. Michael’s is also responsible for the administration of two parishes: St. John the Baptist in Costa Mesa and Sts. Peter and Paul in Wilmington.

A community of Rosarian Dominican Sisters, based in the Philippines, have a convent at the abbey. They do the sacristy laundry and serve in the abbey kitchen.

Because of increased vocations, the abbey has outgrown its property and is currently raising funds for an expansion project about 30 miles from the current site. It will include a new abbey, school and housing for both seminarians and priests.

To help with the fundraising efforts, the abbey choir, of which Father Ambrose is a member, has recorded two CDs: “Christmas at St. Michael’s Abbey” and “Anthology: Chants and Polyphony.”

For information, see www.abbeynews.net.

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