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STOP THE ST. HUBERT MASSES
When do hunters follow St.
Hubert?
The legend of Hubert and the stag
bearing a cross is known from literature and the fine arts.
According to what has been passed down, Hubert was born about
655 as the son of a nobleman and died in the year 728. In the
beginning, he led a pleasure-seeking life and was an ardent
hunter. While hunting one day, he was tracking a stag hoping to
kill it, when the stag suddenly turned and confronted him.
Between its antlers stood a radiating cross, and, in the figure
of the stag, Christ spoke to him: “Hubert, why are you hunting
me?”
Hubert dismounted from his horse and knelt before
the stag. From that moment on, Hubert stopped hunting and led a
modest life.
So much for the legend. After his experience with
the stag, Hubert stopped hunting and became a serious Christian.
Because true Christianity and hunting simply do not fit
together. In his encounter with the stag, he was placed before
the choice: Either he kill the deer – then he would also be
killing Christ – or he does not do this, as said with the words
from Matthew 25:40:
“As you do to the least of my brothers, you also
do to me.”
Nowhere, is it written that Jesus Christ, whom
all Christian denominations revere as the Son of God, ever
hunted animals. That would be very paradoxical, because God’s 5th
commandment says: “You shall not kill.” However, every kind of
hunting is connected with killing.
Despite all this, every year on Nov. 3rd,,
St. Hubert’s Day, so-called Hubert hunts, as well as
Hubert masses in churches, take place. Instead of making St.
Hubert the patron saint of animals, the church named him the
patron of hunters.
All hunters should take St.
Hubert as an example and stop hunting.
But what is the meaning of the legend of St.
Hubert? Isn’t it that man should live in harmony and peace with
nature and the animals? That he should not be the hunter of
animals, but their protector and friend? What is said so nicely
in Mark 16:15: “Go into all the world and proclaim the good news
to all of creation,” is surely not meant to be done with hunting
!
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