Novenas

Nine days of prayer for one intention. The practice is older than the word: the first novena was the nine days the apostles spent waiting between the Ascension and Pentecost.

Nothing here keeps a record of what you pray for. A novena remembers which day you are on, and forgets that too when you finish.

The Flying Novenaone sitting
Nine Memorares prayed one after another, the ninth in thanksgiving before the answer comes. Mother Teresa’s emergency novena, and it takes about two minutes.
Divine Mercy Novena9 days
The nine days Faustina was asked to pray, each one for a different group of souls.
Novena to Our Lady, Undoer of Knots9 days
For the tangle you cannot undo yourself: the estrangement, the paperwork, the habit, the thing that has been knotted for years.
Novena to Padre Pio9 days
For the sick and for a good confession, from the priest who spent his life in both.
Novena to St. Joseph9 days
For work, for a house, for a father, and for a quiet death. Joseph is asked for the ordinary things, which is what he spent his life on.
Novena to St. Jude9 days
For the case that has stopped moving. Jude is the patron of desperate causes, and this is the novena people pray when they have run out of other ideas.
Novena to St. Michael9 days
For protection, and for the fight you did not choose.
Novena to St. Peregrine9 days
For cancer and serious illness, prayed alongside the treatment and never instead of it.
Novena to St. Rita9 days
For the impossible marriage, the impossible family, and the impossible person. Rita lived all three.
Novena to the Holy Spirit9 days
The original novena, and the only one Scripture describes: the nine days the apostles spent praying between the Ascension and Pentecost. Prayed for light, courage, and the gift you need rather than the one you want.
Novena to the Sacred Heart9 days
For a hardened situation, a cold marriage, or your own coldness. The devotion Margaret Mary was given, prayed the way she was asked to pray it.
The Rose Novena to St. Therese9 days
For a sign, and for the little way. Traditionally prayed asking her for a rose as the answer.
The Thirteen Tuesdays of St. Anthony13 days
Prayed across thirteen Tuesdays rather than nine days. For what is lost, and for the poor, which were his two great concerns.
The St. Andrew Christmas Novena25 days
Not nine days but twenty five, and the prayer is said fifteen times a day. An Advent discipline more than a novena, prayed from St. Andrew’s feast to Christmas Eve.