Saint 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 good childbirth. The Norbertine Canonesses at Doksany (Czech Republic) in modern times promote this devotion to St. Norbert as patron of infertile couples or endangered pregnancies, and report hundreds of families now blessed with children, the sisters having well over 3,000 spiritual children as of 2012.

 

A Prayer to St. Norbert for a Good Childbirth

St. Norbert, great and faithful servant of God! You venerated the holy and miraculous birth of our Savior Who His Mother, the purest Virgin Mary, conceived without the loss of her virginity and gave birth to without pain. That is why 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 Him, Our Lord, the whole of his/her life so that in the end we both will reach eternal salvation. Through Jesus Christ, Our Lord. Amen.

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