The word novena comes from the Latin ‘nouenus’ which means nine each or occurring as a group of nine. In the Catholic faith, ‘novena’ refers to a devotion consisting of prayer asking for some special grace for oneself and/or for somebody else. Most novenas are prayed on a daily basis over the course of nine successive days.
The Novena highlights the importance of fortitude and perseverance, urging the faithful to pray, pray, pray
Other novenas differ slightly from this traditional time frame. The Novena to the Infant of Prague, for example, is recited once an hour for nine hours on a single day. The Novena to St Martha, on the other hand, is prayed on nine consecutive Tuesdays.
The nine-day period is an act of spiritual recourse which possibly traces its origins to mourning customs practised by Greeks and Romans. According to the Oxford Encyclopedia of the Middle Ages (2001), the Greeks and Latins marked the death of loved ones with a nine-day cycle of mourning and hopeful remembrance.
Similarly, Christians offered their prayers for the souls of the dead. The Novena for the Holy Souls of Purgatory and the Novena for All Souls are two such novenas which have this intention in mind.
On the other hand, the idea of novenas may have also come from the nine days spent in prayer by the Apostles between Ascension and Pentecost. As recorded in Acts 1, Mary and the Apostles prayed for nine days asking for guidance, perseverance and strength, assiduously preparing themselves for the descent of the Holy Spirit.
Incidentally, the novena of preparation was first documented during the earlier period of the Middle Ages. The novena of preparation was associated with Christmas from the very first.
In France and Spain, in fact, the faithful chose to mark the nine days before the celebration of the Nativity with special prayers. Their intention was to prepare their souls and hearts for the coming of the Lord. In this case, the nine days symbolised the nine months which passed from the incarnation of Jesus Christ in Mary’s womb to his birth. It appears that it was only much later, in the 17th century, that the novena spread significantly throughout all of Italy.
“A special novena,” according to John Rybolt (1985), “in preparation for Christmas was known in Rome from 1618 on. This devotion consisted in the reading and singing of verses from the prophets, Novena dei Versetti”.
In 1721, Fr Carlo Antonio Vacchetta (1665-1747) – pastor of the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Turin – decided to prepare a unique novena for that year’s Advent. He is, as a result, best known in our times for his Christmas Novena. He did, however, also compose novenas in honour of the Holy Spirit and in preparation for the feast of the Immaculate Conception.
In Living and Celebrating the Advent-Christmas Seasons (1982), the Daughters of St Paul explain the format of the Christmas Novena. The opening prayers allude to what may be described as “Christmas prophecies”.
They call upon the congregation to rejoice and be glad for they all deal with the coming of the Messiah who will “destroy all evil on earth”. These are followed by “Let the Heavens be Glad”, a canticle (prayer-song) which Fr Vacchetta composed using some of the Old Testament’s lesser-known prophecies.
A selection of scripture readings is followed by O Antiphons. The O Antiphons are prayers which succinctly echo and emphasise the Old Testament messianic hope for Christ expressed in the opening prayers.
Each antiphon highlights a title for the messiah such as, for example, O Sapientia (Oh Wisdom), O Adonai (Oh Lord), O Rex Gentium (Oh King of the Nations) and O Emmanuel, and each antiphon alludes to the prophecy of Isaiah of the coming of the messiah.
These are followed by the Magnificat and the Closing Prayer. Hymns may also form part of this celebration and the Blessed Sacrament may be exposed if the novena is led by a priest.
Fr Vacchetta’s aim was to help his parishioners experience the hope, faith and joy of the prophets and to take up the call of St John the Baptist to be renewed. By encouraging them to take part in the Christmas novena, the faithful could, as it were, make a spiritual journey which was symbolic of the passage from Old Testament to the New.
The Christmas novena is an opportunity for the faithful to read, sing and pray together. It is an Advent tradition which, taking place as it does during the last week and a half before Christmas, calls upon believers to wholeheartedly prepare themselves for the coming of Christ.
With its insistence on a length of nine days, praying a novena is also important in one other very important respect. It highlights the importance of fortitude and perseverance, urging the faithful to pray, pray, pray.