As a deacon, a “servant of joy and beauty”

The high feast of Saint Norbert is a public holiday every year at the beginning of June in Schlägl Abbey. After all, Norbert of Xanten is considered the founding father of the Premonstratensians. This year the canons had another reason to celebrate. Ewald Nathanael Donhoffer was ordained a deacon by Bishop Manfred Scheuer in the abbey church.

The ordination as a deacon required a longer training path. After his clothing on August 28, 2016 and the novitiate in the Schlägl monastery, Ewald Nathanael Donhoffer studied Catholic theology at the KU Linz. After his ordination as a deacon, he will gain his first pastoral experience in the future parish of Linz-Mitte. He is expected to be ordained a priest next year. In his sermon, Bishop Manfred Scheuer spoke about the joy of the liturgy. “Not all priests and religious professions have the same charisma. There are monastic, contemplative, social-charitable, political, apostolic missionary or educational focuses. Perhaps one charisma of the Premonstratensians is the liturgy. For Mr. Ewald, the liturgy, the choir prayer, brings out a side that otherwise remains silent. The beauty of faith is expressed in the liturgy. And in it the charm of grace, the gift and present character of God’s self-communication, becomes concrete,” stressed Scheuer, also referring to Donhoffer’s profession as a church musician. “As a deacon and musician, Ewald Donhoffer will be a servant of joy and a servant of beauty,” and he specified: “Not paying attention to the beauty of the world is perhaps such a great crime of ingratitude that it deserves the punishment of misfortune,” said Scheuer, referring to Simone Weil. “We could certainly not live without bread, but it is just as impossible to live without beauty,” Scheuer said, quoting Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and quoted theologian and poet Dorothee Sölle: “The certainty of finding beauty in everything that lives is something we have always called God,” said Scheuer.

Gifted musician

Ewald Nathanael Donhoffer OPraem was born in Vienna in 1977. He entered the Premonstratensian monastery of Schlägl in 2016 and made his perpetual profession in 2021. Before that, he studied organ and harpsichord as well as church music and orchestral conducting in Vienna. This was followed by various professional positions as an orchestral conductor at home and abroad as well as teaching at the music universities in Vienna and most recently in Graz.

After his novitiate in Schlägl, he studied theology at the KU Linz from 2017. Since autumn 2022 he has headed the Conservatory for Church Music of the Diocese of Linz, is the collegiate music director of Schlägl Abbey and since October 2023 he has been an assistant at the Institute for Liturgical Studies and Sacramental Theology at the KU.