Hi! Mari here!
I’m so glad that you’re going to be joining me in prayer the next nine days.
This Christmas Novena is a Colombian tradition that dates back to the 1700s. My family has been praying this Christmas novena every year since I can remember. It’s a beautiful way to center the season around Christ’s coming & prepare our hearts for His birth.
The novena starts on December 16th and goes for nine days ending on December 24th, Christmas Eve.
I hope this journey will be fruitful for your relationship with Jesus!
Praying for you!
Instructions:
Each day you will begin by praying the opening prayer, then say the daily prayer that is different for each day of the Novena, then you conclude by praying the prayers to Mary, Joseph, and infant Jesus.
1. OPENING PRAYER (Repeat each day)
Most Benign God of infinite charity Who so much loved mankind that Thou has given by Thy Son the greatest gift of Thy love so that, made Man in a Virgin’s womb, He was born in a manger for our benefit and remedy; I, in the name of all mortals, give You infinite thanks for such a sovereign benefit.
In return I offer you the poverty, humility, and other virtues of Thy Son made Man, pleading by His Divine merits, by the discomforts of His birth, and by the tender tears that He shed in the manger, that He may infuse our hearts with a profound humility, with an ignited heart, with such scorn for the temporal, that Jesus may have in these virtues His crib and remain there eternally, Amen. (3 Glory Be )
2. Recite Prayer for the Day (See daily prayers below)
3. Prayer To The Blessed Virgin Mary (Repeat each day)
Sovereign Mary, Who by Thy great virtues and especially by Thy humility, did merit to be chosen Mother of God, I plead with You to prepare and dispose of my soul, and the souls of all praying this Novena, for the spiritual birth of Thy Adored Son.
Oh sweet Mother, express something of the profound devotion and divine tenderness with which Thou held Him so that we could be made less unworthy to see, love, and adore Him for all eternity. ( 3 Hail Marys )
4. Prayer To St. Joseph (Repeat each day)
Oh, Holiest Joseph, spouse of Mary and adoptive father of Jesus! I give infinite thanks to God Almighty for having chosen You for such a high ministry and having adorned You with all of the gifts proportionate to such an excellent stature. I plead that by the love which Thou had for the Divine Child, thou may embrace me with a fervent desire to see and receive Him sacramentally, while in His Divine Essence I may see and enjoy Him in Heaven. Amen ( Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be)
5. Prayer To The Infant Jesus (Repeat each day)
Remember, Oh most Sweet Child Jesus, Thy words to the venerable Margarita of The Blessed Sacrament, and through her to all of Thy devoted, these ever consoling words for our overwhelmed and mourning humanity. “Everything that you ask, ask by the merits of My Infancy and nothing shall be denied of you.” Full of confidence in You, Oh Jesus, Who art Truth itself, we place our misery before Thee. Help us to lead a saintly life, in order to thus obtain a favorable eternity. Concede us, by the infinite merits of Thy incarnation and Infancy, the graces which we need so much. We place ourselves in Your Hands, Oh omnipotent Child, certain that our hopes will not be dashed, and that by virtue of Thy Divine Promise , Thou will receive and serve our pleas favorably, Amen.
DAY 1 PRAYER
The Life of The Eternal Word within His Father was marvelous and yet, divine mystery, He sought another dwelling, a created mansion, not because His eternal mansion lacked anything for His eternal happiness, but because His infinite mercy longed for the redemption and salvation of humanity, which without Him could not be achieved. Adam’s sin had offended God, and that infinite offense could only be forgiven through the merits of that very same God. Adam’s race had disobeyed and merited an eternal punishment, thus, it was necessary to save that race and satisfy its fault that God, without leaving Heaven, take the form of a man and, with obedience to the dictates of His Father, atone for that disobedience, ingratitude, and rebellion. That is why the Eternal Word, burning with desire to save mankind, resolved to make Himself human as well, and thus redeem the guilty.
DAY 2 PRAYER
The Eternal Word was about to take Its created nature in the holy house of Nazareth where Mary and Joseph lived. When the Divine Decree overshadowed and came over Her, Mary was alone in deep prayer, passing the silent hours of the night in the most intimate union with God; and while She prayed, the Word took possession of His created Dwelling. However, The Word did not arrive unexpectedly, sending a messenger beforehand in the form of The Archangel St. Gabriel, to ask Mary, in the Name of God, Her consent for the Incarnation. The Creator did not want to carry out this great mystery without the consent of His child.
DAY 3 PRAYER
In this way the Child Jesus began His life Incarnate. Let us consider the Glorious Soul and the Holy Body that He had taken, adoring them profoundly. Firstly, admiring the Soul of that Divine Child, let us consider in that Soul the completeness of Its Beatific Science, through which from the very first moment of His life He saw the Divine Essence more clearly that all of the angels, and read past and future with all of its details and knowledge.
DAY 4 PRAYER
Let us consider that, from His Mother’s womb, the Child Jesus began to put in practice His eternal submission to God, which continued without any interruption throughout His entire life. He adored His Eternal Father, He loved Him, He surrendered to His Will; He accepted with resignation the state in which He found Himself, knowing all of its weakness, its humiliation, its discomforts. Who among us would return to such a state while in full control of our senses and reason? It was through such a path that the Divine Child began His painful and humiliating career; it was thus that He began to humble Himself before His Father; to teach us what God deserves from His children; to atone for our pride, the source of all of our sins.
DAY 5 PRAYER
We have seen the life led by the Infant Jesus in the womb of His Mother most pure; Let us today consider the life led by Mary during that same period of time. Mary never ceased aspiring for the moment in which She would enjoy the Earthly Beatific Vision; the Face of God Incarnate. She was at the point of seeing that Human Face which would illuminate Heaven eternally. She was going to read the filial love in those very same eyes whose rays would forever scatter joy among millions of chosen ones. She would witness them in the apparent ignorance and innocence of infancy, the particular charm of youth, and in the severe reflections of maturity.
DAY 6 PRAYER
Let us consider that Jesus had been conceived in Nazareth, domicile of Joseph and Mary, and it would have been there, in all probability, where one would have expected Him to be born. However, God had arranged things in another way and the prophets had announced that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem of Judah, city of David. In order to fulfill this prediction, God made use of a seemingly totally unrelated means; the order given by Emperor Augustus that all subjects of the Roman Empire register for a census in their place of origin. Mary and Joseph, as descendants of David, were thus obligated to go to Bethlehem.
DAY 7 PRAYER
Let us consider the trip of Mary and Joseph toward Bethlehem, carrying with them the yet unborn Creator of The Universe, made Man. Let us contemplate upon the humility and obedience of that Divine Child who, although of Jewish race and having loved His people for centuries with an unexplainable predilection, now obeys a foreign ruler’s dictate that a census be held, as if He was taking advantage of the moment to fulfill a role as an authentic subject of that ruler from the moment He came to this world.
DAY 8 PRAYER
Joseph and Mary arrive in Bethlehem, seeking shelter in the Inns without success, either because they find them full or because of their own poverty. However, nothing can disturb the inner peace of those fixed on God. If Joseph experienced sadness upon being rejected house by house, thinking of Mary and the Child, he also smiled with holy tranquility upon looking at his chaste spouse. The still unborn Child delighted in these refusals which were a prelude of His approaching humiliations. This is what He had come to find. The desire for those humiliations had been the motivation for Him to take human form.
DAY 9 PRAYER
But now, midnight has arrived, and we suddenly see within that manger, shortly before empty, the Divine Child, expected, foretold, desired during four thousand years with such indescrible longing! At His feet kneels His Most Saintly Mother in the depths of an adoration which nothing can approach. Joseph also approaches Him and renders Him homage with which He inaugurates his mysterious and imponderable role of putative father to the Redeemer of mankind. The multitude of angels descending from Heaven to contemplate this unequalled wonder, vibrate the harmonies of that Glory in Excelsis in the air, which is the echo of the adoration produced before the Throne of the Most High made perceptible for an instant in the ears of the mere earth below. Convened by these angels, groups of shepherds from the area arrive to adore the newly born Child and present their most humble offerings.
Oh, adorable Child, we too, who have made this novena to prepare for the day of Your birth, want to present our humble adoration. Do not reject it. Come to our souls, come to our hearts full of love. Ignite in them a devotion to Your Holy infancy. A devotion which, truly practiced and zealously propagated, will guide us to eternal life, freeing us from sin and planting in us all of the Christian values.
THE KING IS BORN!
Thank you for joining me in praying the Christmas Novena together. I hope that it brought you peace and joy as you welcomed baby Jesus into your home and heart.
Have a wonderful Christmas!
