Christmas Novena - START TODAY!

Happy Church New Year!  The first Sunday of Advent is the beginning of the Church's new liturgical year.  Celebrating it on the heels of the uniquely American holiday of Thanksgiving is a joyous union of gratitude for our country's great civic and spiritual blessings!

To start off your Church Year, join me TODAY in starting the "Christmas Novena" or "St. Andrew's Novena."  This novena is recited 15 times a day (yes, fifteen times per day... whew!) from Monday, November 30th (the Feast of St. Andrew) through Christmas Day (the Feast of the Nativity of Our Lord).

This is piously believed to be a very powerful novena!
 
...think it's too much?

- Break up your recitations!  Pray five at breakfast, five at lunch, and five at dinner or bedtime.
- Post copies (see below) throughout your house beside your Christmas decorations.
- Pray it as a family, so your family total equals fifteen times per day.

Does it "count" if you miss a day or a recitation?  Who knows!

No, I mean it.  "Who" knows.  With a capital "W."  God knows!  Only God knows what is in your heart and mind this Advent and Christmas season.  Only God knows why you might need this novena and actually opened this e-mail from that crazy lady in Savannah.

Only God, the Creator of the universe and YOU, came down from on high as a helpless Infant Child to rescue YOU and me from the insanity of sin as flawed human beings.  He made you.  He loves you!  And He made you to know, LOVE, and serve Him in this world and be happy with Him forever in Heaven.

Hooray!

Please join me in praying this novena, in trying to focus for at least a few moments every day of Advent on the Infant Christ, Who is to come.  He is coming to save the world -- to save YOU!

Hail and blessed be that incomprehensibly vast, generous, and singular moment of His arrival!

Let this be a Blessed Advent and a very Merry Christmas, indeed!

Here is the text of the novena, as well as links to a document for you to print of the novena AND a daily checklist:

NOVENA:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1jFI88S4CKiWnNfUURZRzhaeUE/view?usp=sharing

CHECKLIST:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1jFI88S4CKidDhJMXcxVTh5VEk/view?usp=sharing

 

Saint Andrew
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 Saviour Jesus Christ, and of His Blessed Mother.

Amen.