Novena

Devotional status: Approved devotion
Evidence type: Historical account
GuideThe entry concerns an approved or received form of Catholic life whose practice and development must be distinguished from dogma.
Contents

Novena is a Catholic period of prayer observed over nine days or occasions in preparation for a feast or for a sustained intention.[1]

A novena (from Latin: novem, "nine") is an ancient tradition of devotional praying in Christianity, consisting of private or public prayers repeated for nine successive days or weeks.[4] The nine days between the Feast of the Ascension and Pentecost, when the disciples gathered in the Upper Room and devoted themselves to prayer, is often considered to be the first novena.[5]

In some Christian communities, such as in Africa, Latin America and the Philippines, novena traditions are popular and include devotional rituals such as liturgies, congregational prayers, the decoration of statues, hymns and music, processions, as well as communal feasting.

Novenas are most often prayed by members of the Catholic Church, but also by Lutherans, Anglicans, and Eastern Orthodox Christians; they have been used in ecumenical Christian settings as well.[6] The prayers are often derived from devotional prayer books, or consist of the recitation of the rosary (a "rosary novena"), or of short prayers through the day. Novena prayers are customarily printed in small booklets, and are often dedicated to a specific angel, saint, Marian title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or one of the persons of the Holy Trinity.

A pattern of persevering prayer

A novena repeats or develops prayer across nine successive days, nine designated occasions, or another pattern received in a particular devotion. Christians often connect the number with the apostles and Mary praying between the Ascension and Pentecost, though not every historical novena arose directly from that event. Novenas may prepare for Christmas or a saint's feast, seek intercession, or accompany repentance and thanksgiving.[2]

A novena is a pious exercise rather than a sacrament or an official liturgical season. Some novenas are publicly celebrated under ecclesiastical authority; many are private. Approved texts, Scripture, litanies, hymns, silence, and works of mercy can help focus sustained prayer without pretending that one fixed formula is universally required.

Faith without superstition

The number of days does not bind God or guarantee a requested outcome. Claims that an exact recitation compels a miracle, excuses conversion, or punishes interruption turn prayer toward superstition. Christian petition trusts the Father's wisdom, asks through Christ, and remains open to purification of the intention.

Novenas should harmonize with the liturgical year and lead toward the sacraments and charity. A novena before a feast can unfold its biblical and doctrinal meaning; one seeking a saint's intercession should keep Christ's unique mediation clear. Pastors may correct texts that contain error, manipulation, private-revelation claims presented as doctrine, or promises lacking ecclesiastical approval.

History

The word Novena is rooted in the Latin word for nine. The practice of the novena is based in early Christianity, where Masses were held for nine days with devotional prayers for the deceased.[7] The practice may trace its origins to an early Greek and Roman custom performed by families, consisting of nine days of mourning after the death of a loved one, followed by a feast, which originally prompted Catholic writers such as Augustine of Hippo, Pseudo-Alcuin and John Beleth to warn Christians not to emulate the custom.[8]

Over time, members of the Roman Catholic faith began to associate novena with Christian themes such as the nine months Jesus spent in the womb, the giving-up of His spirit at the ninth hour during the crucifixion, and the nine days that passed between the Ascension of Jesus and the descent of the Holy Spirit on the first Christians at Pentecost. In the New Testament, this biblical event is often quoted from Acts of the Apostles, 1:12–2:5. The Church Fathers also assigned special meaning to the number nine, seeing it as symbolic of imperfect man turning to God in prayer, due to its proximity with the number ten, symbolic of perfection and God.[8]

Papal recognition

The practice of novena grew by the Middle Ages to include pious prayers for nine days before a feast in honor of a saint identified on a liturgical calendar. By the 11th century, the novena practice had become a means in Christianity of praying to petition spiritual or personal favor through a saint, such as the Virgin Mary. After the Protestant Reformation and Counter-Reformation, the Catholic Church formally permitted novenas, in particular through the papal approvals of a large number of novenas by Pope Pius IX.[7]

In the Roman Catholic Church, there are three recognized categories of novenas, though this distinction is not exclusive:

  • Mourning, or before a burial;
  • In preparation for a Church feast; the revised Enchiridion Indulgentiarum assigns indulgenced novenas to particular feasts: "A partial indulgence is granted to the faithful, who devoutly take part in the pious exercises of a public novena before the feast of Christmas or Pentecost or the Immaculate Conception of the Blessed Virgin Mary."[9]
  • Intercessory (for a particular request).

By standard liturgical norms, novenas may be performed in church, at home, or anywhere where solemn prayers are appropriate, though some indulgenced novenas require church attendance. Sometimes, a special candle or incense is lit at the beginning of the novena which burns during the nine days of prayer.

The first chapter of the General Principles of Sacrosanctum Concilium, #13, of the Second Vatican Council (1962–1965) sought to give guidance on the place of novenas in Christian piety:

Devotions should be so drawn up that they harmonize with the liturgical seasons, accord with the sacred liturgy, are in some fashion derived from it, and lead the people to it, since, in fact, the liturgy by its very nature far surpasses any of them.[10]

Within the Roman Catholic tradition, novena prayers typically include a praise of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mary or another saint, and a personal petition. Novenas have been a widespread practice in Catholic history.[11] Novena prayers are also practised by Lutheran, Orthodox and Anglican Christians, who hold close or similar beliefs regarding its pious practice.[6] In addition, novenas have also been used in an ecumenical Christian context, such as those promulgated by Premier Christian Radio, in order to pray for Church renewal.[12]

Practices

A novena is a ritualistic devotional worship where one or more Christian devotees make petitions, implore favors, or obtain graces by honoring Jesus Christ, Virgin Mary or the saints of the faith who are believed to empower divine intervention.[13][14][15] According to Professor Fenella Cannell, a Novena is "a supplicatory act of worship".[16]

A novena may be made at any time. The devotion of the Nine First Fridays in honor of the Sacred Heart is a novena.[8] Some parishes conduct a perpetual novena where the prayers particular to a specific novena are recited weekly.

Other novenas are traditionally held in preparation for a particular feast day.

  • The novena to the Holy Spirit is held between Ascension Thursday and Pentecost in commemoration of when the disciples gathered in the upper room and devoted themselves to prayer; it is considered the first novena.[5] There are a number of ways to pray the Pentecost Novena. One might pray the Evening Prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours each day, the "Come, Holy Spirit" or other prayers.
  • The Novena to the Holy Trinity generally includes the Gloria Patri, although the other prayers may be used.
  • There are a variety of Christmas novenas. The Saint Andrew's Christmas novena is made from the feast of Saint Andrew (November 30) through Christmas Eve with the novena prayer said fifteen times daily.[17] Las Posadas is a novena celebrated chiefly in some Latin American countries, such as Mexico, Guatemala, Cuba, and by Hispanics in the United States. Colombians also celebrate a novena in the nine days leading to Christmas, known as the novena of aguinaldos. It is typically celebrated each year between December 16 and December 24.[18]
  • The novena in honor of the Infant Jesus of Prague is often said at Christmastide. The Feast of the Holy Name of Jesus is the principal feast of the miraculous Infant.[19] In the Czech Republic the statue is ceremoniously paraded through the streets of Prague annually on May 27, with prayers and songs.[20]
  • A novena to Saint Joseph is commonly made on the nine first Wednesdays before his feast day (March 19 and May 1) or on the nine days before the feast.[21]
  • Franciscan friaries customarily hold a novena of nine (or thirteen) Tuesdays (or nine consecutive days) in honor of Anthony of Padua before his feast day of June 13.[22]
  • The novena to Saint Jude and the novena to Saint Peregrine, the patron saint of cancer patients, each begin nine days before their feast days, but can be prayed in a particular time of need as well.[21]

Regional customs

Africa

Novena practices were introduced into communities by Christian missionaries in their colonial era and postmodern era evangelization efforts in Africa, as well as new world plantation colonies where African slaves were settled such as in Brazil.[23] These initiatives brought a sense of socioreligious community.[24]

Some practices are unique to Africa. Various denominations of Christianity in Africa have introduced regional novena practices that include devotional prayers, singing, and clap, wave, or shout offerings. The novena devotionalism in Ghana includes on each of the nine nights, after the loud prayers, the blood-covering of Jesus, where the devotees stain themselves considering it to be symbolism for the blood of Christ.[25]

Among the coastal West African Christian communities, novena is a means of petitioning God through worship and fasting, along with traditional rituals.[26] Syncretic new age religious practices in Nigeria have adopted the nine days of novena prayer ritualism.[27] In Zimbabwe, according to Lawrence Daka – a professor and a Zimbabwean Jesuit:

Their [Catholic clergy] healing sessions are theatric, hysterical, loud and really engaging to the extent that some people fall to the ground and others feel the power of God piercing through their bodies. Some of the strong willed Catholics have taken up Novena after Novena seeking divine intervention in a sickness or misfortune. In short, there is a great yearning and thirsting for a religion that delivers quick answers to people’s problems which range from misfortunes to dealing with illness and death.

— The Church and the Challenges of the Healing Ministry in Zimbabwe, May 2015[28]

Europe and North America

Devotional and paraliturgical novenas have been common in Europe as well as with European settlers in North America. These have included public worship such as Mass and private praying with religious items such as a rosary and images particularly related to the Virgin Mary. According to James M. O'Toole, a professor specializing in American Catholic history, the period between World War I and mid-1950s were the "heyday of American Catholic devotionalism".[29]

This period witnessed novena devotionalism along with popularity of sodalities, confraternities, devotion to saints, meatless Fridays, holy cards, rosary, cross and eucharistic practices.[30] O'Toole says that these provided a sense of communal identification, particularly in a time of mass migration. The novena had strong roots in ethnic neighborhoods, and devotional worship had sociopolitical links, offering a sense of communal security through religious symbols in a period of uncertainty and fear.[29] As economic prosperity and a sense of national solidarity grew in and after the 1960s, the novena ritualism waned and the participation in church worship services fell.[31][32]

In Eastern and Central Europe, novena practices continue. During the communist era, the devout orthodox Christians in the former Yugoslavia organized the Great Novena under the statue of Virgin Mary, to resist the state enforced atheism, to maintain the freedom to practice religion, and to re-assert the Christian legacy of the region, particularly in Croatia.[33]

In Catholic Ireland, states Professor Gladys Ganiel, devotional practices such as novenas have been popular. The cultural acceptance of devotional worship has been historically high, and those Irish who themselves do not perform novenas, nevertheless respect those who do. Some of their Catholic ritual practices were repressed by the British state during the 18th and 19th centuries, but repression and criticism only increased the resolve of the Irish to persist in their ways of practicing their faith.[34]

A 1921 survey in the Bulletin of the University of Notre Dame states that novena prayers were popular, and particularly common among students during examinations, or illness, or after the death of a fellow student.[35] The Novena-Seance remain popular in many regions of the United States, such as among the Roman Catholics of Louisiana, where novenas are dedicated to Saint Jude and the Virgin Mary. These novenas are prayers believed to create a contact between the saint and the devotee, and thereby invoke divine intervention in whatever problem or anxiety is important to the devotee.[36]

Latin America

The novena has been an important part of Christianity in the Caribbean and Latin America, both among the native Indian communities who converted to Christianity under the colonial Spanish or Portuguese rule, as well as the diverse communities that formed anew from millions of slaves and indentured laborers brought to the Americas from different parts of Africa and Asia. The devotional prayers are dedicated to statues of Jesus Christ, Madonna and various saints. They are also a part of velorio (wake) after the death of someone, which includes nine nights of novena (rezos de los nueve días).[37][38][39]

According to Patrick Taylor and Frederick Case, attendance at Christian religious services has been low, except after the death of a loved one or a significant socio-political individual, and during times of difficulty such as epidemics or a drought.[40][41] Many perform devotional worship with rosaries within their home before images of Christ and the Christian saints at a small dedicated altar within their living spaces.[41] Like proselytism in Africa and Asia, missionaries of various denominations of Christianity, including Protestantism, have championed novenas in Hispanic-Latino communities as a part of their efforts to attract new converts to their ministries.[42]

Colombians celebrate a novena in the nine days leading to Christmas, known as the novena of aguinaldos.

India

Novenas are still a common sight in India, especially in the state of Kerala. They are practised by Roman Catholics and oriental Catholics (e.g. Syro-Malabar Christians and Syro-Malankara Christians) and by the Orthodox Christians (Malankara Orthodox Christians and Jacobite Orthodox Christians). Novenas are common to Mother Mary (recited every Saturday), Saint George (common by the Orthodox and recited every Wednesday), Saint Jude (recited every Thursday), Saint Antony (recited every Tuesday) and others.

Philippines

In Christian communities of the Philippines and Latin America, novena traditions include devotional rituals in front of an altar, with nine levels where the Holy Cross is placed at the top.[43] These are lit up with candles, decorated with flowers and other ritual items. Additionally, the space may have many statues decorated, and these statues typically include those of Virgin Mary, Apostles and saints of regional significance. The first day, the votive candles are placed on level one, and with each day the candles are raised by one level towards the Holy Cross. Further, each day includes congregational prayers, hymn singing with music, private and public devotionals. Some novenas include, sometimes on the last day, community fiesta events over beverages, refreshments or processions.[44][43]

The novena is also linked to funerary rituals. Among Filipino Catholics, the Rosary Novena is a common practice where the prayer is recited for nine days, often beginning the day of someone's death, and formal funeral services timed to any time until the ninth day.[11] Elsewhere, the day of the funeral and interment is timed to local customary practices, while the novena is continued at the home of the deceased or elsewhere.[45]

Novenas remain a popular devotional practice in the Philippines.[46] It is observed, for example, in the Simbang Gabi immediately preceding Christmas. The tradition of parol lanterns is also associated with the Christmas novena procession and the accompanying Panunulúyan pageant.[47][48] In Pampanga, Christmas novenas were known as Lubenas or Lubenas Pascu.[47][48]

It is also celebrated in the novena preceding the Feast of the Santo Niño de Cebú (Holy Child) on the third Sunday of January. The first nine days are marked with prayers, petitions and singing.[49] During the main procession in Cebu City, the Santo Niño image is taken through the streets, with many people carrying their own replicas, decorated according to their own tastes.[49] In Loboc, Bohol, the most popular novena is dedicated to a Black Madonna statue, with each service called the Gozos, which includes a chanting of praises to the Virgin in Spanish and Visayan, dancing, choir recitals, and a feast with fireworks on the last day.[50]

In Metro Manila, popular novenas to Our Lady of Perpetual Help, Saint Jude Thaddeus, and the Black Nazarene are assigned to the last three days of the working week.[51] Each novena is associated with a particular shrine, all of which have been approved by the Holy See. Some organizations have also begun offering the novena rituals online for devotees.[52]

The Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help is observed for nine consecutive Wednesdays in Baclaran. The Saint Jude novena on Thursdays invokes the apostle's status as the patron saint of lost causes, and is popular with students taking examinations.[53] The Black Nazarene novena held on Fridays marks the journey of Christ with the cross to his crucifixion. The image, novena, and associated devotional practices have a large following. In 2011, over six million Catholic devotees flocked to the Black Nazarene procession in Manila alone.[54]

Melanesia

In 19th century Melanesia, the Christian clergy linked the end of epidemics, such as the measles of 1860, and credited the survival of the communities after major disasters to the dedicated and great outburst of prayers to Christian icons, to "fervent novena".[55] Similarly, the Black Madonna novenas in Luboc started after similar crediting by the Christian clergy that the island community survived after a severe epidemic of cholera because they made devotional prayers to the Virgin Mary (Madonna) during their time of suffering.[50]

General bibliography

  • Barbara Calamari & Sandra DiPasqua, Novena, Penguin Studio, 1999. ISBN 0-670-88444-8.
  • Right Reverend Monsignor Joseph F. Stedman, The New Revised 'Triple' Novena Manual, Confraternity of the Precious Blood, 1975.

From the 1913 Catholic Encyclopedia

(From novem, nine.)[3]

A nine days' private or public devotion in the Catholic Church to obtain special graces. The octave has more of the festal character; to the novena belongs that of hopeful mourning, of yearning, of prayer. "The number nine in Holy Writ is indicative of suffering and grief" (St. Jerome, in Ezech., vii, 24; — P.L., XXV, 238, cf. XXV, 1473). The novena is permitted and even recommended by ecclesiastical authority, but still has no proper and fully set place in the liturgy of the Church. It has, however, more and more been prized and utilized by the faithful. Four kinds of novenas can be distinguished: novenas of mourning, of preparation, of prayer, and the indulgenced novenas, though this distinction is not exclusive.

Jewish background

The Jews had no nine days' religious celebration or nine days' mourning or feast on the ninth day after the death or burial of relatives and friends. They held the number seven more sacred than any other. On the contrary, we find among the ancient Romans an official nine days' religious celebration whose origin is related in Livy (I, xxxi). After a shower of stones on the Alban Mount, an official sacrifice, whether because of a warning from above or of the augurs' advice, was held on nine days to appease the gods and avert evil. From then on the same novena of sacrifices was made whenever the like wonder was announced (cf. Livy, XXI, lxii; XXV, vii; XXVI, xxiii etc.).

Greek and Roman mourning

Besides this custom, there also existed among the Greeks and Romans that of a nine days' mourning, with a special feast on the ninth day after death or burial. This, however, was rather of a private or family character (cf. Homer, Iliad, XXIV, 664, 784; Virgil, Aeneid, V, 64; Tacitus, Annals, VI, v.). The Romans also celebrated their parentalia novendialia, a yearly novena (13 to 22 Feb.) of commemoration of all the departed members of their families (cf. Mommsen, "Corp. Inscript. Latin.", I, 386 sq.). The celebration ended on the ninth day with a sacrifice and a joyful banquet. There is a reference to these customs in the laws of the Emperor Justinian ("Corp. Jur. Civil. Justinian.", II, Turin, 1757, 696, tit. xix, "De sepulchro violato"), where creditors are forbidden to trouble the heirs of their debtor for nine days after his death. St. Augustine (P.L., XXXIV, 596) warns Christians not to imitate the pagan custom, as there is no example of it in Holy Writ. Later on, the same was done by the Pseudo-Alcuin (P.L., CI, 1278), invoking the authority of St. Augustine, and still more sharply by John Beleth (P.L., CCII, 160) in the twelfth century. Even Durandus in his "Rationale" (Naples, 1478), writing on the Office of the Dead, remarks that "some did not approve this, to avoid the appearance of aping pagan customs".

Christian mortuary practice

Nevertheless, in Christian mortuary celebrations, one finds that of the ninth day with those of the third and seventh. The "Constitutiones Apostolicae" (VIII, xlii; P.G., I, 1147) already speak of it. The custom existed specially in the East, but is found also among the Franks and Anglo-Saxons. Even if it was connected with an earlier practice of the pagans, it nevertheless had in itself no vestige of superstition. A nine days' mourning with daily Mass was a distinction, naturally, which could be shared by none but the higher classes. Princes and the rich ordered such a celebration for themselves in their wills; even in the wills of popes and cardinals such orders are found. Already in the Middle Ages the novena of Masses for popes and cardinals was customary. Later on, the mortuary celebration for cardinals became constantly more simple, until finally it was regulated and fixed by the Constitution "Praecipuum" of Benedict XIV (23 Nov., 1741). For deceased sovereign pontiffs the nine days' mourning was retained, and so came to be called simply the "Pope's Novena" (cf. Mabillon, "Museum Italicum", II, Paris, 1689, 530 sqq., "Ordo Roman. XV"; P. L., LXXVIII, 1353; Const. "In eligendis" of Pius IV, 9 Oct., 1562). The usage still continues and consists chiefly in a novena of Masses for the departed. A rescript of the Sacred Congregation of Rites (22 Apr., 1633) informs us that such novenas of mourning, officia novendialia ex testamento, were generally known and allowed in the churches of religious (Decr. Auth. S.R.C., 604). They are no longer in common use, though they have never been forbidden, and indeed, on the contrary, novendiales precum et Missarum devotiones pro defunctis were approved by Gregory XVI (11 July, 1853 [sic]) and indulgenced for a confraternity agonizantium in France (Resc. Auth. S.C. Indulg., 382).

Novenas of preparation

Besides the novena for the dead, we find in the earlier part of the Middle Ages the novena of preparation, but at first only before Christmas and only in Spain and France. This had its origin in the nine months Our Lord was in His Blessed Mother's womb from the Incarnation to the Nativity. In Spain the Annunciation was transferred for the whole country by the tenth Council of Toledo in 656 (Cap. i; Mansi, "Coll. Conc.", XI, 34) to 18 Dec., as the most fitting feast preparatory to Christmas. With this it appears that a real novena of preparation for Christmas was immediately connected for the whole of Spain. At any rate, in a question sent from the Azores (Insulae Angrenses) to the Sacred Congregation of Rites, an appeal was made to the "most ancient custom" of celebrating, just before Christmas, nine votive Masses of Our Lady. And this usage, because of the people who took part in the celebration, was permitted to continue (28 Sept., 1658; Decr. Auth., 1093). A French Ordinarium (P.L., CXLVII, 123) prescribes that the preparation for Christmas on the ninth day should begin with the O anthems and that each day, at the Magnificat, the altar and the choir should be incensed. The Ordinarium of Nantes and the Antiphonary of St. Martin of Tours, in place of the seven common O anthems, have nine for the nine days before Christmas, and these were sung with special solemnity (Martene, "De Antiq. Eccles. Ritib.", III, Venice, 1783, 30). In Italy the novena seems to have spread only in the seventeenth century. Still, the "Praxis caeremoniarum seu sacrorum Romanae Ecclesiae Rituum accurata tractatio" of the Theatine Piscara Castaldo, a book approved in 1525 by the author's father general (Naples, 1645, p. 386 sqq.), gives complete directions for the celebration of the Christmas novena with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament. The author remarks that this novena in commemoration of Our Lord's nine months in the womb was solemnly celebrated in very many places in Italy. And in the beginning of the eighteenth century the Christmas novena held such a distinguished position that the Sacred Congregation of Rites (7 July, 1718), in a special case, allowed for it alone the solemn celebration with Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament (Decr. Auth., 2250).

Founders' feast novenas

But before this, at least in Sicily, the custom had sprung up among religious of preparing for the feast of their founder with a novena of Masses, and these Missae novendiales votivae were also (2 Sept., 1690) declared permissible (Decr. Auth., 1843). In general, in the seventeenth century, numerous novenas were held especially in the churches of religious and to the Saints of the various orders (cf. Prola, "De Novendialibus supplicationibus", Romae 1724, passim). Two hundred years later, on application from Sicily for Exposition of the Blessed Sacrament in the celebration of novenas, special permission was granted (Decr. Auth., 3728), and in the decrees on the Missae votivae of 30 June, 1896, there is really question of the Missae votivae novendiales B.M.V. (Decr. Auth., 3922 V, n. 3). At least in this way, then, the novena is recognized even in the Liturgy.

Novenas of prayer

At the same time as the novena of preparation, the proper novena of prayer arose, among the faithful, it would seem, who in their need turned to the saints with a novena, especially to recover health. The original home of this novena must have been France, Belgium, and the neighbourhood of the Lower Rhine. Specially noteworthy up to the year 1000 are the novenas to St. Hubert, St. Marcolf, and St. Mommolus. St. Mommolus (or Mummolus) was considered the special patron for head and brain diseases; the novenas to him were made especially in the Holy Cross Monastery of Bordeaux, where the saint was buried (Mabillon, "Act. Sanct. O. S. B.", II, Venice, 1733, 645 sqq.; "Acta SS.", August, II, 351 sqq.; Du Cange, "Glossarium", s. v. "Novena"). St. Marcolf procured for the kings of France the power to cure scrofula by a touch of their hand. For this purpose, shortly after their coronation and anointing at Reims, the kings had to go in person on pilgrimage to the tomb of St. Marcolf at Corbeny and make a novena there. Those who were to be healed had to make a similar novena. But the best known is the novena to St. Hubert, which continues even to our day. This is made against madness by people bitten by a mad dog or wolf (Acta SS., November, I, 871 sqq.).

Objections and defense

The last-named novena was attacked in later times, particularly by the Jansenists, and was rejected as superstitious (cf. "Acta SS.", loc. cit., where the attack is met and the novena justified). Before this, Gerson, in the fourteenth century, had given warning against the superstitious abuse of this novena. But he does not reject novenas in general and we see from his works that in his time they were already widespread (Opera, Paris, 1606, II, 328; III, 386, 389). But notwithstanding Gerson's warning, novenas were from that time on ever more and more in favour with the faithful, to which the many, even miraculous, effects of the novenas contributed not a little. Benedict XIV (De canonizat. sanct., lib. IV, p. II, c. xiii, n. 12) tells of a number of such miracles adduced in the processes of canonization. Catholics know from their own experience that the novena is no pagan, superstitious custom, but one of the best means to obtain signal heavenly graces through the intercession of Out Lady and all the saints. The novena of prayer is thus a kind of prayer which includes in it, so to speak, as a pledge of being heard, confidence and perseverance, two most important qualities of efficacious prayer. Even if the employment of the number nine in Christianity were connected with a similar use in paganism, the use would still in no way be blameable or at all superstitious. Not, of course, that every single variation or addition made in whatever private novena must be justified or defended. The holiest custom can be abused, but the use of the number nine can not only be justified but even interpreted in the best sense.

Symbolism of nine

The number ten is the highest, the numerus maximus, simply the most perfect, which is fitting for God; the number nine, which is lacking of ten, is the number of imperfection, which is fitting for mortal kind. In some such way the Pythagoreans, Philo the Jew, the Fathers of the Church, and the monks of the Middle Ages, philosophized on the meaning of the number nine. For this reason it was adapted for use where man's imperfection turned in prayer to God (cf. Jerome, loc. cit.; Athenagoras, "Legat. pro Christian.", P.G., VI, 902; Pseudo-Ambrosius, P.L., XVII, 10 sq., 633; Rabanus Maurus, P.L., CIX, 948 sq., CXI, 491; Angelomus Monach., In Lib. Reg. IV, P.L., CXV, 346; Philo the Jew, "Lucubrationes", Basle, 1554, p. 283).

Medieval symbolism

In the novena of mourning and the Mass on the ninth day it was remembered in the Middle Ages that Christ gave up the ghost in prayer at the ninth hour, as in the penitential books (cf. Schmitz, "Die Bussbucher und die Bussdisciplin", II, 1898, 539, 570, 673), or remarked that, by means of Holy Mass on the ninth day, the departed were to be raised to the ranks of the nine choirs of angels (cf. Beleth, loc. cit.; Durandus, loc. cit.). For the origin of the novena of prayer we can point to the fact that the ninth hour in the Synagogue, like None in the Christian Church, was a special hour of prayer from the beginning, so that it was reckoned among the "apostolic hours" (cf. Acts, iii, 1; x, 30; Tertullian, "De jejuniis", c. x, P.L., II, 966; cf. "De oratione", c. xxv, I, 1133). The Church, too, in the Breviary, has for centuries invoked the Almighty in nine Psalms and honoured Him in nine Lessons, while from ancient times the Kyrie has been heard nine times in every Mass (cf. Durandus, "Rationale, De nona"; Bona, "Opera", Venice, 1764; "De divina psalmodia", p. 401).

Scriptural model

As has been said, the simplest explanation of the Christmas novena are the nine months of Christ in the womb. But for every novena of preparation, as also for every novena of prayer, not only the best explanation but also the best model and example was given by Christ Himself to the Church in the first Pentecost novena. He Himself expressly exhorted the Apostles to make this preparation. And when the young Church had faithfully persevered for nine full days in it, the Holy Ghost came as the precious fruit of this first Christian novena for the feast of the establishment and foundation of the Church. If one keeps this in mind and remembers besides that novenas in the course of time have brought so many, even miraculous, answers to prayer, and that finally Christ Himself in the revelation to Blessed Margaret Mary Alacoque recommended the special celebration of nine successive first Fridays of the month (cf. Vermeesch, "Pratique et doctrine de la dévotion au Sacré Coeur de Jésus", Tournai, 1906, 555 sqq.), one must wonder that the Church waited so long before positively approving and recommending novenas rather than that she finally took this step (cf. "Collection de précis historiques", Brussels, 1859, "Des neuvaines", 157 sqq.).

Indulgenced novenas

Not until the nineteenth century did the Church formally recommend novenas by the concession of Indulgences. This brings us to the last kind of novenas, those which are indulgenced. Apparently Alexander VII in the middle of the seventeenth century granted Indulgences to a novena in honour of St. Francis Xavier made in Lisbon (cf. Prola, op. cit., p. 79). The first novena indulgenced in the city of Rome, and even there for only one church, was the novena in preparation for the feast of St. Joseph in the church of St. Ignatius. This was done by the Briefs of Clement XI, 10 Feb., and 4 March, 1713 (cf. Prola, loc. cit.; Benedict XIV, "De canoniz.", loc. cit.). The Franciscans, who used before this to have a novena for the feast of the Immaculate Conception (cf. Decr. Auth. S.R.C., 2472) received special Indulgences for it on 10 Apr., 1764 (Resc. Auth. S.C. Indulg., 215). Not until later, especially from the beginning of the nineteenth century, were various novenas enriched with Indulgences in common for the whole Church. They number in all thirty-two, intended for the most part as novenas of preparation for definite feasts.

Approved forms

They are in detail as follows: one in honour of the Most Holy Trinity, which may be made either prior to the feast of the Holy Trinity (first Sunday after Pentecost) or at any other time of the year; two to the Holy Ghost, one to be made prior to the feast of Pentecost for the reconciliation of non-Catholics (this is also made publicly in all parochial churches), one at any time of the year; two novenas to the Infant Jesus, one to be made before the feast of Christmas and the other at any time during the year; three to the Sacred Heart, one prior to the feast of the Sacred Heart (the Friday after the octave of Corpus Christi), one at any time during the year, and the third that of the nine first Fridays, which is based on the promise made to Blessed Margaret Mary by the Sacred Heart assuring the grace of final perseverance and the reception of the Sacraments before death to all who should receive Holy Communion on the first Friday of every month for nine consecutive months; it is customary to offer this novena in reparation for the sins of all mankind; eleven novenas in honour of the Blessed Virgin, viz., in honour of the Immaculate Conception, the Nativity of Mary, her Presentation at the Temple, the Annunciation, the Visitation, the Maternity of Mary, her Purification, her Seven Dolours, the Assumption, the Holy Heart of Mary, and the Holy Rosary; one novena each in honour of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, and one in honour of the Guardian Angel, two to St. Joseph, one consisting of the recitation of prayers in honour of the seven sorrows and seven joys of the foster-father of Christ, prior to the feast of St. Joseph (19 March) and one at any time during the year; one novena each in honour of St. Francis of Assisi, at any time during the year, St. Vincent de Paul, St. Paul of the Cross, St. Stanislaus Kotska, prior to his feast (13 November), St. Francis Xavier, and one for the Holy Souls.

Novena of Grace

The novena in honour of St. Francis Xavier, known as the "Novena of Grace", originated as follows: in 1633 Father Mastrilli, S.J., was at the point of death as a result of an accident, when St. Francis Xavier, to whom he had great devotion, appeared to him and urged him to devote himself to the missions of the Indies. Father Mastrilli then made a vow before his provincial that he would go to the Indies if God spared his life, and in another apparition (3 Jan., 1634) St. Francis Xavier exacted of him a renewal of this promise, foretold his martyrdom, and restored him to health so completely that on the same night Father Mastrilli was in a condition to write an account of his cure, and the next morning to celebrate Mass at the altar of the saint and to resume his community life. He soon set out for the Japanese missions where he was martyred, 17 October, 1637. The renown of the miracle quickly spread through Italy, and inspired with confidence in the power and goodness of St. Francis Xavier, the faithful implored his assistance in a novena with such success that it came to be called the "novena of grace". This novena is now made publicly in many countries from 4 to 12 March, the latter being the date of the canonization of St. Francis Xavier together with St. Ignatius. The conditions include a visit to a Jesuit church or chapel. The indulgence may be gained on any day of the novena, and those who are prevented by illness or another legitimate cause from communicating during the novena may gain the indulgence by doing so as soon as possible. All of these novenas without exception are to be made, in private or in public, with pious exercises and the reception of the Sacraments, and for these usually a daily partial Indulgence can be gained and a plenary Indulgence at the end of the novena. The Indulgences and the conditions for gaining them are accurately given in detail in the authentic "Raccolta" and in the works on Indulgences by Beringer and Hilgers, which have appeared in various languages. The indulgenced novenas, to a certain extent official, have but contributed to increase the confidence of the faithful in novenas. Hence, even the private novena of prayer flourishes in our day. Through the novena to Our Lady of Lourdes, through that to St. Anthony of Padua or some other saint, the faithful seek and find help and relief. The history of novenas is not yet written, but it is doubtless a good part of the history of childlike veneration of Our Lady and all the saints, of lively confidence in God, and especially of the spirit of prayer in the Catholic Church.

JOSEPH HILGERS

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