A new season

Get your wreaths and candles out, Advent is almost here already! It's time for a new year in the church. For many people, the past year may have been difficult, so I thought I'd share a novena I heard about on the radio this morning in the hopes that it might bring some peace and positive change in the coming year. It is said to be very powerful when said faithfully. (Remember, just reciting a prayer without thought and earnestness is useless. It's not magic!)

This novena is said 15 times a day for 25 days, starting November 30, the Feast of St. Andrew, until Christmas. It's also a wonderful way to focus our attention on the gift of Christ at Christmas rather than all of the other material 'stuff' that is going on in our culture this time of year. Perhaps you may want to say it with a special intention - selling a house, finding a job, surviving a stressful time, or say it for someone you know.

Christmas Novena

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in piercing cold. In that hour, vouchsafe, O my God! to hear my prayer and grant my desires, through the merits of Our Savior Jesus Christ, and of His Blessed Mother. Amen.

Imprimatur
+MICHAEL AUGUSTINE, Archbishop of New York
New York, February 6, 1897

(There is a certain reader of this blog, by the way, who may want to avail himself of this prayer as it is not insignificant that it starts on the Feast of ST. ANDREW and there is a certain intention involving a house that he has been trying to get fulfilled for quite a while now. Just a suggestion.)