When I was in the 6th grade, I lived in a little village in France by the name of Premontre (there should be a circumflex above the o but I can't figure out how to put it there.) It was so small, it didn't even have its own bakery. There was a small village center with a cafe, a general store, and the village church. Just to one side of the village was a TB sanitorium, and just outside the town an ancient monastery. I regret now that I never heard Mass in that village church, (I was an Anglican Protestant at the time), nor did I ever visit that monastery. My siblings and I used to climb past the barbed wire fences into the bunkers and battlefields of two world wars, but we never investigated that only monastery.
Fast forward nearly 10 years. I become Catholic, marry my husband, and come to love my mother in law (Emma, I hope you are still praying from me up in Heaven!). She has a great devotion to St. Norbert and St. Gerard Majella. As a matter of fact, my husband's next two brothers are Norbert and Gerard. I came to learn that the feast day of St. Norbert is June 6, my husband's birthday. Several years later, I learned that the order founded by St. Norbert is also called the Premonstratensians, after the little village in France, Premontre, where the order was founded. Are you confused yet? My husband was born on the feast day of a saint, who founded an order, based in the little village in France where I lived for one year.
Coincidence? maybe - but I don't think so!
