Novenas

A Novena is a special type of devotion practiced by the Church, often in the build up to Feast Days, or days of special significance throughout the year. They are a prayer – or a set of prayers – prayed over nine days with the day after the end of the novena being the celebration day of the Feast, Solemnity, or other special occasion.

We can make novenas for different purposes; for ourselves, intentions in our own lives, for our friends or our families, for the intentions of the Church, for the Holy Souls in Purgatory and many other causes.

How we make a novena is quite simple. Every day for nine days we pray the novena we have chosen in its entirety at the same time every day. In the novena prayers there will be time for us to make our intentions, this is where we ask God – or the saint we are asking to pray to Jesus for us – for the cause we are praying the Novena for.

Novenas are very beautiful devotions. They focus our minds and our hearts and make us pray regularly and intensely for the graces we hope for from God. Our Lord loves to hear the prayers of novenas because it shows that people love him enough to dedicate a concentrated amount of their time to him.