Novena
Saint Andrew Christmas Novena
25-day novena to Saint Andrew The Apostle · begins 30 November, the feast of Saint Andrew, continuing daily until Christmas Eve
A single short prayer honouring the hour of Christ's birth, said fifteen times a day from the feast of St. Andrew on 30 November until Christmas. It is called a novena by custom rather than by arithmetic: it runs twenty-five days, not nine, and takes its name from the day it begins rather than from any authorship by the apostle.
Background
The prayer is an old devotional text of unknown authorship, printed in English with the imprimatur of Archbishop Michael Augustine Corrigan of New York, 6 February 1897. It is a private devotion, not a liturgical office, and the Church attaches no promise to it: the note that accompanies the prayer in the old books says only that it is piously believed that whoever recites it will obtain what is asked, which is a report of popular confidence and not a guarantee. The received form gives one prayer, not nine; the nine subjects below are an editorial way of keeping the long Advent stretch fruitful, and the prayer itself is unaltered on every day.
Days
Intention
keeping Advent by returning again and again to the hour and moment of the Nativity, with one intention held before God
Usually begun
30 November, the feast of Saint Andrew, continuing daily until Christmas Eve
Structure
daily_until_feast
Duration
25 days
Content subtype
full_novena