Quote/s of the Day – 6 June – St Norbert and a Prayer for his Intercession for a Safe Childbirth

Quote/s of the Day – 6 June – Pentecost Monday and the Memorial of St Norbert (c 1080-1134) Bishop, Confessor, Founder of the Premonstratensian or the Norbertine Canons and Sisters, “Defender of the Eucharist” and “Apostle of the Eucharist,” Exorcist, Reformer, Preacher

On the day of his ordination, St Norbert said:

“O Priest! You are not of yourself because you are of God.
You are not of yourself because you are the servant and minister of Christ.
You are not your own because you are the spouse of the Church.
You are not yourself because you are the mediator between God and man.
You are not from yourself because you are nothing.
What then are you?
Nothing and everything.
O Priest!
Take care, lest what was said to Christ on the cross be said to you:
‘He saved others, himself he cannot save!”

“You will never enjoy
the sweetness of a quiet prayer,
unless you shut your mind,
to all worldly desires and temporal affairs.”

St Norbert (c 1080-1134)

Why is St Norbert Patron of Expectant Mothers & Infertile Married Couples?

A pious woman once approached St Norbert asking whether she and her husband ought to separate and enter Monasteries because they lived in an infertile marriage.
St Norbert prophesied that they would be blessed with children, the first of whom would be dedicated to God. This child, Nicholas, did indeed become a Norbertine at Prémontré.
St Norbert is traditionally invoked for a safe childbirth too.
The Norbertine Canonesses at Doksany (Czech Republic) in modern times, promote this devotion to St Norbert as ‘Patron of Infertile Couples and Endangered Pregnancies’ and report hundreds of families now blessed with children, the Sisters, having well over 3,000 spiritual children as of 2012. It would be wonderful to find an updated figure 10 hears later.

A Prayer to St Norbert
for a Safe Childbirth

St Norbert, great and faithful servant of God!
You venerated the holy
and miraculous birth of our Saviour,
Whom, His Mother,
the purest Virgin Mary,
conceived without the loss of her virginity
and gave birth, ever remaining a virgin.
You connected the origin
of the Premonstratensian Order
with the day of the Birth of Jesus Christ.
I humbly pray to you, St Norbert,
as a great protector,
so that God will give me the grace,
through your intercession,
to give birth to this conceived child.
And so, that He will give me also,
the grace that this child
will join the Church of Christ
through the Sacrament of Baptism
and that he/she will serve
Almighty God
the whole of his/her life
so that in the end
we both will reach eternal salvation.
Through Jesus Christ, Our Lord,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
One God forever.
Amen.

(Translated from The Little Hours, 1749, by one of our Norbertine Sisters at Doksany)