Have you ever prayed a novena? Some people might find such a thing out of fashion, but it is making a return among a number of Catholics. For some, the practice never left.
For nine years, as pastoral director of St. Jude Shrine in Baltimore, Maryland, I led weekly novena prayers on Wednesdays and Sundays during the perpetual novena in honor of St. Jude, patron of hopeless cases. The custom of praying a novena, usually nine days of prayer, arose from the liturgical period of nine days between the Solemnity of the Ascension of the Lord and Pentecost Sunday. (In recent years, many dioceses have moved the Solemnity of the Ascension from Thursday to the Sunday before Pentecost.) This liturgical time marks for us the period between when Christ ascended to the Father and the sending of the Holy Spirit on the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Apostles, and the disciples.
The Risen Christ gave his followers a mission. He told them to “Go”. But go and do what? “Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit” (Matthew 28:19). They did not go immediately, but instead were looking at the sky. They were confused. Then they went into the Cenacle or the Upper Room, prayed and discerned together. They were not ready to go forth on mission for Christ. When the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost, they received the boldness to preach and to heal in the name of Jesus Christ. Only then did they accept their being sent by Christ.
As Christ sent them, so he sends us. St. Vincent Pallotti taught, as did the Second Vatican Council, that the baptized are sent into the world as apostles of Christ. In word and deed, our world needs to hear proclaimed that God is love, Christ saves, and Christ is alive (Christus Vivit, chapter 4). This is the initial proclamation of the Good News or the kerygma. When people encounter us, do they encounter Christ? Do we accompany them into greater faith in him? Are they welcomed into the community of faith, the Church? Do they realize that they, too, are sent? (cf. Living as Missionary Disciples, Part I).
We do none of these works alone. We are dependent on the Holy Spirit. As Pope Francis teaches us, “When you receive the Spirit, he draws you ever more deeply into the heart of Christ, so that you can grow in his love, his life and his power (Christus Vivit, 130). The Holy Spirit will guide us in our discernment and in the mission that we have been given by Christ.
May the Charity of Christ urge us on!