Saints of Education: St. Herman Joseph

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St. Herman Joseph, a priest of the Norbertine Order, was born in the Rhineland around the middle of the 12th century and died at a great old age on April 4, 1241. As a young boy he attended one of the first and best known of the Order’s schools. He is the patron saint of students educated by the Norbertine Fathers. His window is positioned next to Mother Catherine, representing with her the commitment of dedicated religious to the work of education in our parish school.

St. Herman Joseph is the only saint in our windows whose head is uncovered—out of respect for the Lord present in his arms. His face is based on the ancient statue found in the abbey church of Steinfeld in the Eifel, Germany, where he entered the Order as a young boy. He wears the monastic tonsure (haircut) common in that epoch. He is dressed in the white habit of the Norbertines as it would have looked at that time.

From his childhood St. Herman Joseph had many mystical experiences. In one of them, as a boy, he offered an apple to the statue of the Virgin and Child at the church of the Capitol in Cologne. The statue came to life and the Child Jesus took the apple (He is holding the apple in the window). He holds the Child to evoke the nurturing aspect of the work of education. The Christ Child is dressed as King with His Sacred Heart exposed. St. Herman Joseph wrote the earliest known hymn to the Sacred Heart of Jesus which opens with the line, “I hail Thee kingly Heart most high." St. Herman Joseph wears a ring on his left hand which he received from the Blessed Virgin during the celebration of their mystical espousals. The white roses growing at his feet are reminiscent of the saint’s purity and great love for the Blessed Virgin whom he liked to call his “Rose”. The crescent moon above his image also
evokes the Virgin. The bats flying in the air recall a story from his youth when he chased the bats out of the abbey bell tower using a volume of St. Augustine—the bats symbolizing the inner demons against which the true monk must struggle for a lifetime.

St. Herman Joseph shared the profound devotion of the Norbertines for the Blessed Sacrament. He holds a chalice, symbol of the sacrament of the Holy Eucharist, which is the source and summit of the Church’s life. A wooden pail sits by the side of the stream in the lower panel. This evokes the period in the saint’s life when he was sacristan of the abbey church, and would rise early each morning to fetch from a pure mountain stream the water which would be poured (a single drop) into the chalice at Mass: he wanted nothing but the best for the celebration of the Sacred Mysteries.

In the lower panel is also the coat of arms of Abbot Eugene J. Hayes, O.Praem., the abbot of St. Michael’s Abbey (1995—current) under whose tenure the Norbertine Fathers arrived at St. John’s. The left side of the shield is the coat of arms of the Norbertine Order (crossed crosiers and fleur-de-lis) and St. Michael’s Abbey (the wing of St. Michael). On the right are the personal arms of Abbot Hayes.