Pray More Novenas

If you happen to be like me when it comes to praying a novena, I end up forgetting to pray by about day 4. I always start with good intentions and then my brain fails me and suddenly the final day 9 has arrived and I have not completed my daily prayers. Recently, my friend Gwen, sent me a link to an awesome website: www.praymorenovenas.com . This website was begun by a very good man named John-Paul Deddens. He found himself in the same predicament as me, with forgetting to finish or failing to begin novenas so he began this ministry of spreading the word about praying novenas. He has his website set up, to send to anyone who is interested, novena prayers directly to their inbox every morning. John-Paul does not send new novenas every single time we finish praying one. He waits until his readers request a particular novena. Since I have signed on, we  prayed a novena to St. Jude during our election process last November. One of our prayers, which we asked St. Jude to place at the throne of God was this:

"I ask for the eyes to see others as sons and daughters of God.  I ask for help in forming my conscience according to the Gospel so that I may both vote and act for the common good."

 Pray More Novenas began 2 1/2 years ago with a Christmas novena with the main intention being for an end to abortion and a greater respect for the dignity of all human life. John-Paul always asks us to add our personal intentions but he choses a main intention for each novena as well.

John-Paul spends many hours discerning which prayers to pray on each of the nine days of the novena. We pray together with the 45,000 people who subscribe to John-Paul's emails. Recently, we prayed a novena to the Immaculate Conception which was the very first novena he prayed with his then girlfiend, now wife, Annie. John-Paul asks us to pray for the intentions of the other members. Astonishingly, John-Paul and Annie pray for every single prayer request they receive during the course of a novena. This involves reading, responding to and praying for over 1000 requests.

Some other novenas we have prayed: a novena to St.John Bosco, John-Paul's main intention was a simple one: Hope. We prayed a novena for Pope Benedict when he announced his retirement and his health issues, a novena for the Conclave when Pope Francis was chosen, a Divine Mercy novena on Good Friday and for our Pentecost Novena, John-Paul asked us to pray for something concrete and measuable. My prayers are always for my children: that God will continue to guide them to follow His will and that they will be open to the promptings of the Holy Spirit.

Please join me and  'a few other people' when we begin our next novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus beginning on the feast of the Sacred Heart on June 7th.

God's peace be with you.

Laurie

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