…Nine days until election day… which has got me thinking about the number “nine”…

…In Christianity there is an ancient prayer tradition of the Church called, “Novenas,” that involves praying a set of certain prayers for nine consecutive days. The origin comes from the nine days that the Apostles and the Blessed Virgin Mary spent in intentional prayer after Jesus’ Ascension awaiting the outpouring of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (see Acts 1:14 and Acts 2:1). The calculation of nine days comes from Scripture saying that Jesus was with Apostles for forty days after His resurrection (Acts 1:3), and Pentecost occurs fifty days (seven weeks), following Passover (see Deut. 16:9- 10; Lev. 23:15-21). (By the way, Jesus was crucified the day before Passover, and Resurrected the day after the Passover, and then poured out his Holy Spirit on Pentecost). Thus, traditionally it is calculated from the day after Ascension to the Saturday Vigil of Pentecost equaling the nine days.

Nine has also been attributed to other experiences of prayerful anticipation; nine months that Jesus spent in the womb of Mary; Jesus died on the “ninth hour” (an ancient way of referring to midafternoon (3:00pm), being nine hours after morning (6:00am)).

Thus, in following the Apostles and Mary in their preparation for Pentecost, Christians have developed the tradition of spending nine days in prayer, either in anticipation for a liturgical celebration (such as a Church Feast, a Saint’s Day, or in preparation of reception of a Sacrament), or in petition or intercession for a particular prayer intention.

But there is no one single way to pray a novena. Many different novenas have been written that involve some pieces of the prayer that is different for each day and then conclude with the same traditional prayers repeated each day (an Our Father, or Hail Mary, or some verse of prayer or Scripture). Some do a novena that is simply offering a rosary for nine consecutive days for a particular intention.

Some even compose their own prayer that they pray for nine days.

Novenas can be prayed in preparation for an important life event (say, whether yourself or another receiving a Sacrament (Baptism, Confirmation, Communion, or Matrimony)), or leading up to important anniversaries, such as a wedding anniversary OR the anniversary of the death of a loved one (praying for the beloved deceased).

Or if you want to maximize the celebration of a birthday for your kids, your family could pray with them a novena for nine days leading up to their birthday!

If you need a place to start for finding novenas, here is a good resources to find novenas (also available as an app): https://catholicnovenaapp.com/list-of-all-novenas/#

A novena that I particularly like to pray in intercession for others is the Surrender Novena, which can be found at this link in both English and Spanish: https://surrenderprayer.weebly.com/

Finally, if you decide to pray a novena for our country leading up to the election, The United States Catholic Bishops have put together nine particular prayer intentions to be offered in such a novena which can be found here: https://www.usccb.org/2020-election-novena#tab–closingwednesday-november-4-

Peace,

-Fr. Kevin