May 6, 2007
Catholic This and That by Wayne Talbot
Acts 14:21b-27; Revelation 21:1-5a; John 13:31-33a, 34-35

Its name deriving from the Latin word "novem," meaning "nine," a novena is nine days' private or public devotion in the Catholic Church to obtain special graces. Though they are not part of our liturgy and remain a "popular devotion" (a very few are prayed paraliturgically), they've been prayed since the very beginning of the Church -- and before its official beginning: Mary and the Apostles prayed from His Ascension to the Pentecost, a period of nine days (Acts 1). Also, a nine-day period of supplication was a pagan Roman and Eastern practice, so novenas were easily accepted by the earliest converts in these lands.

The Christian and Jewish meaning of the number "9" entered into Christian thinking on the matter, as "9" was associated with suffering, grief, and imperfection, making it a fitting number for when "man's imperfection turned in prayer to God" (Catholic Encyclopedia). St. Jerome wrote that "the number nine in Holy Writ is indicative of suffering and grief" (Ezekiel, vii, 24).

Novenas, then, often, but not necessarily, have about them a sense of "urgency"; they are typically made for special intentions, one's own or another's ("I'll make a novena for you"). Novenas to certain Saints are often made according to that Saint's patronage; for ex., because of his New Testament letter encouraging Christians to persevere in the face of persecution, St. Jude is the patron of desperate situations and "hopeless" causes, so a person who finds himself or a loved one in a real tough bind might make a novena to St. Jude (by the way, it is traditional, after making a novena to St. Jude, to make a public expression of your gratitude. This is the reason for those mysterious thank you notes to St. Jude that you might see in your local newspaper's Classifieds section).

There are four main types of novenas (a novena may fit into more than one category):
• novenas of mourning, such as the novena made during the novemdiales -- the nine day period following the death of a Pope
• novenas of preparation, or "anticipation," such as the Christmas or Easter Novenas
• novenas of prayer
• the indulgenced novenas
In some novenas, the same prayer is said each day for nine days, or sometimes 9 times in one day; others may have (or add) different prayers for each of the 9 prayer sessions. Some "novenas" aren't properly called "novenas" because the number nine plays no role in any way, but still retain the label. When a Novena is prayed in anticipation of a Feast, it is typically begun such that it ends the day before the Feast (i.e., to know when to start a Novena in anticipation of a Feast, count 10 days back from the Feast, with the Feast itself counting as "one.")

Be aware that some uneducated persons think about Novenas in a superstitious manner. Any Novena instructions that include words such as, "say this prayer for 9 consecutive days and your wish will be granted to you," or that describe the Novena as "never fail" in some sense that would lead one to believe that we have God at our beck and call rather than our being His humble servants -- well, while the prayers themselves might (or might not) be OK, such instructions should be absolutely rejected.

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.

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. The Romans also celebrated their parentalia novendialia, a yearly novena (13 to 22 Feb.) of commemoration of all the departed members of their families. 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, 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".

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". 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).

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 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. 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).

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, 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. 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" The Church, too, in the Breviary, has for centuries invoked the Almighty in nine Psalms and honored Him in nine Lessons, while from ancient times the Kyrie has been heard nine times in every Mass.

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.).

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. 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. 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.

They are in detail as follows: one in honor 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 honor of the Blessed Virgin, viz., in honor 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 Dolors, the Assumption, the Holy Heart of Mary, and the Holy Rosary; one novena each in honor of the Archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, and one in honor of the Guardian Angel, two to St. Joseph, one consisting of the recitation of prayers in honor 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 honor 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.

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