Novena
The Fifty-Four Day Rosary Novena
54-day novena · begins Any time; often begun so that the fifty-fourth day falls on a Marian feast
Six nine-day novenas of the Rosary prayed back to back: three in petition and three in thanksgiving, fifty-four days in all. One Rosary is said each day, the mysteries rotating Joyful, Sorrowful and Glorious in turn, and each Rosary is opened with the received prayer offering Our Lady a crown of roses. The thanksgiving half is prayed whether or not the favour has been granted.
Background
The devotion is associated with the shrine of Our Lady of the Rosary at Pompeii and with the healing of Fortuna Agrelli in 1884, in which Our Lady is reported to have asked for three novenas of the Rosary in petition and three in thanksgiving. The apparition is a private revelation; no Catholic is bound to believe it, and the Church proposes the Rosary itself, not the report, as the reason for praying. The received opening prayer varies with the mystery set — snow-white buds for the Joyful, blood-red roses for the Sorrowful, full-blown white roses tinged with the red of the passion for the Glorious — and the nine days below are one full turn of that rotation, repeated six times. From the twenty-eighth day the same prayer is said in the thanksgiving form: 'At thy feet I gratefully kneel to offer thee a Crown of Roses... As thou receivest my gift, so wilt thou receive my thanksgiving; from thy bounty thou hast given me the favor I so earnestly and trustingly sought. I despaired not of what I asked of thee, and thou hast truly shown thyself my Mother.'
Days
Intention
one grave intention carried through the whole mystery of Christ in the Rosary, and thanksgiving offered before the answer is seen
Usually begun
Any time; often begun so that the fifty-fourth day falls on a Marian feast
Structure
fifty_four_days
Duration
54 days
Content subtype
full_novena