Happy feast of Saint Andrew today!! Today marks the beginning of what is sometimes called the Saint Andrew Novena, and sometimes the Christmas Novena, because these two feasts mark the beginning and end of the "novena."
In fact, it is not a proper novena at all, as it lasts much longer than the traditional nine days ("nova"), and is not a collection of prayers to pray once each day, but is one short--but beautiful--prayer that you pray FIFTEEN times each day--from now until Christmas!
It sounds like quite an undertaking, and in a way it is. I have been "praying" it for several years now, and each year I am more determined to actually accomplish the 15 prayers each day. I have not done it yet! But I can tell how each attempt, each collection of prayers shapes and forms my consciousness each Advent season, and helps me prepare for the coming Christ.
We hear a lot, these days, along the lines of "Keep the wait in Advent!" I believe Maria von Trapp first began the lament, when she and her family came to America from the "old country" of tradition-rich Austria, and found December already thoroughly commercialized, and Christmas swept away and done with almost before it had begun. So many decades later, we keepers of the Advent-Christmas-Epiphany season have only a steeper uphill battle to fight.
But with all the traditions and trappings -- the Jesse trees, the Advent wreaths, the devotionals, the notions -- there is no stronger weapon than prayer, and no tool better fitted to its job. Now, that's not to say that we don't pray all of are beautiful Advent devotions -- in fact, we must, to make them anything more than a mime show -- but for me, at least, it is so easy to get swept up in the material aspect of them, when the entire culture is swimming in a materialistic approach to the holy day.
What the St. Andrew Novena offers, much like the Divine Office or the Liturgy of the Hours for those called to monastic or consecrated life, is forces you to stop your busy rush and your own pursuits, even for just a moment, to say a word or two of wonder, anticipation, and hope.
So much hope. So great a NEED for hope, in all our lives. And if we can offer a tiny word of hope -- perhaps as much as fifteen times each day ;) -- we are doing a very great thing in the heavens. Troubling the stagnant waters, as it were, with the hope of God-made-man.
And the near-impossibility of it (although, I am reminded of my own words, as I recently countered my 6-year-old's complaint of "Impossible!" with a rousing rendition of Rodgers and Hammerstein's version 😂) -- as I say, the near-impossibility of remembering to pray even this simple prayer 15 times every day for a month -- is a very humbling task. I nearly always fail; if "failure" is a word that can apply to earnest prayer. And in my stumbling, I try to call upon St. Paul, so that with him I might "rather boast most gladly of my weaknesses, in order that the power of Christ may dwell with me" (2 Cor. 12:10).
For Christmas, as we remind ourselves in this prayer, is a time when God made himself small to be near us, who are really quite tiny, though we get wrapped up in the greatness of being made in His image. But when He made Himself in a body like ours, He made it tiny enough for the animals of a manger to nuzzle at, tiny enough to be formed in a Virgin's womb, to be born into the world in one of its tiniest places, rejected, in a cave.
Through this prayer we can try to make ourselves almost -- almost -- as small as Him.
For Him, with Him, in Him, we pray:
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, I beseech Thee,
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.
And as all small children need help, here are a few helps for this novena!
Click on either of the images below to download a wallpaper/background I made so that you can see the prayer whenever you pick up your screen! (Is that more or less than 15 times a day? ;)
Other aids:
Receive daily reminders in your email by signing up at the Pray More Novenas website (one of my favorite prayer aids)!
Or, sing it! I first heard this sung version a few years ago, and it quickly became my very favorite way to pray this novena.
What have been your experiences praying the St. Andrew Novena? Have you heard of it before? How did you first hear of it, and what is your favorite way to pray it? It takes a little planning for, so share all your tips and tricks!
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