By DEB PIROCH
If you find yourself in Steinfeld, Germany, in North-Rhine Westphalia just southwest of the former German capital of Bonn, you might consider making a pilgrimage. Once a week for nine weeks running from the Fourth Sunday of Lent to Pentecost, pilgrims visit the marble sarcophagus of St. Hermann Joseph von Steinfeld. This pilgrimage has existed for over two centuries, which is really nothing, given that people have actually traveled to see and pray at this saint’s tomb ever since he died in 1241.
Hermann was born in Cologne, Germany, and came from a devout family; his mother was St. Hildegund and his sister declared “blessed” by Rome. Before age seven in school he was already devoted to our Lady.
As this writer once lived in Cologne and has written about other saints associated with Cologne — for instance, Edith Stein — she couldn’t resist writing about Hermann Joseph. In one of city’s Romanesque churches little Hermann offered the statue of Mary and the Christ Child an apple, whereupon the statue came alive, and He accepted the fruit. Ever since, artists have portrayed the saint with the apple and pilgrims have been leaving apples at the saint’s tomb when they pay a visit.
His family once rich was now poor, but that was no matter for our Lord had been poor. But when the child had no shoes, the statue of Mary came alive again, and told Hermann to look under a nearby stone to find money to buy some.
This church still exists in Cologne today; it’s built on the site of an earlier Catholic church, which in turn was built on the site of an ancient Roman temple dating almost back to 50 AD. Yes, there are Roman and early Christian ruins in the city, and the church as it now stands dates to Hermann’s lifetime. It also still contains carvings and religious items from the eleventh century.
By the ripe age of 12, Hermann wished to enter a monastery that was Norbertine or Pre-monstratensian, as the order was known. This group was founded only 30 years or so before Hermann’s birth, by Norbert, a friend of St. Bernard of Clairvaux. (The Norbertine order is the fifth oldest surviving order that exists today, but numbers are sadly depleted.)
He was too young, so was sent first to Friesland in the north to study. Hermann did not like studying secular topics. He felt really that any secular duties imposed were a waste of time when he wished to be engaged in prayer. That is, until he had a vision of the Blessed Virgin, telling him all would be well, that doing these duties was pleasing to God. Then he became a sacristan and a little later made his religious vows, taking the additional name of Joseph. Eventually he would also become a priest and the chaplain to a nearby cloister of Cistercian nuns.
Like so many mystics, he existed on a completely different plane than we do; he conversed with the Blessed Virgin and Christ Child, the angels, spent hours at a time in prayer in ecstasy. Butler’s Lives says it is not known when exactly he was ordained, but because the Mass is the ultimate Sacrifice of our Lord, saying Mass would frequency engender more ecstasies, making it hard for him to find altar servers!
When his head was not in the clouds, it was inside machinery. He loved fixing clocks and would visit many monasteries and other places to fix their instruments. So, he has also become the patron saint of clock and watchmakers.
During his life he wrote prayers and hymns, and some say the oldest extant hymn to the Sacred Heart was written by St. Hermann, Summi regis cor aveto. Though this song has many stanzas, here are two beautiful ones:
Heart of the Most High King, Hail,
I salute you with a joyful heart,
it pleases me to embrace you,
and my heart
longs for you to encourage me to speak to you.
By what love were you conquered,
by what pain were you twisted,
when you exhausted
yourself so that you would give yourself completely to us
and save us from death.
O dearest cherished heart,
cleanse my deceitful heart,
hardened in sin,
make it godly and [more] godly,
driving out the shameful coldness
into the interior of my heart,
a sinner and guilty,
may Your love be transferred,
so that thereby the heart may be whole [and]
overcome the wound of love.
Other hymns for which he is known include one honoring Christ in the Eucharist, “Jesu, dulcis et decore,” one for Mary, “Gaude, plaude, clara Rosa” and one for St. Ursula and her Virgin Companions, “O vernantes Christi rosae.” The latter saint figured in his writings, too, for St. Ursula and the Virgin Martyrs were killed by Huns in the area of Cologne. We know he also wrote a commentary about the Song of Songs but this, and some other writings, have been lost to time.
Besides holding an apple, art sometimes portrays Hermann as a mystical husband to Mary. This is because in a vision, Hermann also found himself beautifully and mystically espoused to the Holy Virgin. He saw the Virgin along with two angels, speaking, who said: “With whom should we marry the Mother of God?” The other replied: “Who else if not with this brother?” Then, placing his right hand in the hand of our Lady, told him: “I commit this Lady as wife, and therefore I will call you Joseph.”
Despite these tremendous supernatural blessings, he offered up many sufferings and crosses. Hermann also struggled especially with illnesses like headaches and strong temptations. Feast days were especially hard. He would say, “Festa sunt mihi infesta,” or “the feast days are devastating for me.” No doubt the Devil tried hard to pull him unsuccessfully from the side of God.
Just after Easter in 1241, he died at a very old age at the cloister where he was chaplain to Cistercian nuns. Greatly loved, he was brought back to Steinfeld Abbey and the miracles began almost immediately after he was entombed.
The main church, where Hermann lies, was granted the status of papal basilica minor in 1960, two years after Hermann was finally declared a saint by Pope Pius XII in 1958. Begun in the seventeenth century, his cause for canonization had been interrupted, but history and the cult of his sainthood had established his holiness long enough for an equivalent canonization by the Holy Father. His feast has just passed us by; it was April 7.
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