What's A Novena?

A Prayer Said For Several Days

“But we have this treasure in earthen vessels…” (II Corinthians 4:7 NKJ).

As it is the 150th Anniversary of the Lourdes apparitions, (wherein the Blessed Mother appeared to a young girl known as Bernadette, now a Saint) this is one they are saying at a church in Washington every evening from now for the next 2 weeks:

O Mary Immaculate, Blessed Virgin of Lourdes, Desiring to make this novena with the greatest devotion of my soul and to answer the call that you made to all your children in the person of the humble Bernadette, I kneel at your feet to listen attentively to your voice to make known my necessities and seek your powerful protection. Do not refuse me, my Mother, on account of my unworthiness. Look only at the repentance that I feel for having wounded your maternal heart and renewed the Passion of your Most Beloved Son. Come and help me during this novena to purify my soul and to obtain through your intercession the special grace which I impore from the divine Majesty (mention your specific request here) and to give thanks to God for all the benefits received by me, and especially for that which is the purpose of this novena. Amen.

and to Pray for the Sick

O powerful Virgin of Lourdes, full of affliction and with tears in our eyes, we fly unto thee comforter of the afflicted and health of the sick. Placing in thee all our confidence cognizant of the innumerable and wonderful cures made by thee not only in Lourdes but all over the world, we humbly prostrate before thee in this dreadful hour of distress and sickness and beseech thee with all the fervor faith and devotion of our souls to hear the supplication which we direct to thee in favor of this our beloved patient (friend, relative...) .Since you have worked so many cures among your devotees, do please make one more and save this beloved member of our family. Take him/her from all danger if it will not be an obstacle to his/her salvation and we solemnly promise to spend the rest of our lives as good and practical Catholics in thanksgiving for your powerful patronage. Amen

Virgin of Lourdes, pray for us
Comforter of the Afflicted, pray for us
Health of the sick, pray for us

Immaculate Lady and my Mother by the love you showed to the world deigning to appear in a rustic Grotto to teach the young and happy Bernadette, I beseech you to grant me a share in the same great joy. And as you O Lady cause a rich spring of crystal and health-giving waters to gush forth, obtain that Your Divine Son may pour upon my soul the sweetest and most fruitful water of grace to extinguish the love of earthly things and to cleanse my sinful heart so that I may be worthy of the most pure joys of heaven. Amen.

Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.
--------------
Commentary:
I agree without amendment with most of it.

God does not require at all that we detest or die to desire of all earthly things, and it is incorrect that a proper love of earthly things impedes the journey to or hinders the joy within heaven- but God requires instead that we subjegate earthly things with a proper appreciation to the service of God as everything was created by Him and for Him (just denying earthly things denies also their purpose for God which is just wrong)- there creepeth in again that nasty apostacy known as the Albigensian heresy wherein all things of the earth, or "matter" as opposed to "spirit" are deemed evil and all things "spiritual" are deemed holy. This borrowed from the paganistic Platonic Realm of the Forms which taught that there were various "forms" of existence, such that matter was not intrinsically valuable or holy. Eros was viewed as evil rather than the servant of Agape. Thus anything approaching human attraction is viewed wrongly and immaturely as "lust" and anything deemed holy cannot also encompass within it marital union.
The incarnation teaches just the opposite. God was made manifest in human form, human flesh, which was not inconsistent with his deity and co-existed within it. This could not take place were all flesh or matter evil- were that the case his holiness could not be contained in human flesh, it would bubble out like oil through vinegar. His entering the world as a human indicates that he himself stands in the place of a human to emphasize the point that Humanness is holy. Insofar as Christ's spirit dwells in a person, humannes is the very holy vessel of Christ's further manifestation in the world.

If priests stand in persona Christie, Jesus stands In Persona-Deo Humana.

He does this just to make the point contrasted in radical juxtaposition with the pagan Greek philosophy of the times which held that the body was a lesser form and evil, asserting instead that humanness is a vessel of holiness. Your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit.

The Divine Birthed in Human Flesh is a Marriage of holiness with humanity that gives the Dignity to all Humanity that God intended from the beginning of Creation.

What was the Temple? The House of Prayer. The body is the House of the Spirit.
This --all earthly things, all matter is evil heresy borrowed from paganism is at the root of the notion that holiness is unattainable through a path that honors matter as carrying holiness within it. This pagan heresy is at the root of the medieval belief that if a priest married and had children he was somehow less holy and less worthy of his priestly calling. Taken to it's logically absurd reduction, it provides twisted rationale for why love is redefined as something divorced from and extrinsic, etherially separated from human fleshly union such that the highest form of holiness cannot co-exit with it. I call this persistent heresy the "Revenge of the Albigensians."

God never invented matter to curse it. God never created man to self-flagulate himself to death. That is not a proper ordering of his passions.
Jesus didn't create human emotion so people would kill it and call it holy. That is pure evil perversion.
When God created the world, he looked at it- all the matter within in, and he said- It's Good. It's really Good. It's very Good. It's Intrinsically Good.

At the heart of the Miseducation of the Monsignor Martyrs of the world who believe mistakenly that they are following Christ by immitating his death on a cross by putting to death all their earthly passion (as well as anyone who inspires it) is the supreme hubris that they have any atonement capacity whatsoever for redemption by mortification of their bodies. That is why the mandatory celibacy rule of the Church is not scriptural. Christ ALONE was able to provide the atonement by his death on the Cross because CHRIST ALONE is the MESSIAH, the Son of the living God, born of the Virgin- There is ONE Sacrificial Lamb who was an acceptable substitute for us- no Priest is- Any Priest who puts his essential self to death (and Christ didn't commit suicide by the way), is guilty of a sort of murder- and it serves no redemptive purpose because they do not have as mere mortals any capacity to convert a bodily death into The Atonement.

This Redemptive Act cannot be achieved or attained by any mortal including priests. Without accepting this reality the necessary depth of appreciation of what Jesus actually did can never be attained. If any of us, or all of us can by mortification of the flesh immitate Christ's act of atonement in any meaningful way, it dethrones and displaces Him- who uniquely and only had the ability as pure holy God in human flesh to die a death that atoned for our sins. When you displace God in this manner you make an Idol of yourself.

Christ told NO ONE to follow him to the Gallows. Christ's death served a purpose that cannot be immitated by mere mortals. To the contrary, Christ flatly said that he laid down his life and would take it up again in resurrection so that we all would have LIFE, not death, to the fullest in abundance. He died so that we would have Life- so that anyone who understood and believed in the atonement would Live-forever.

So if I were to rewrite that last part of the Novena I would edit out completely the sentence that said "to extinguish the love of earthly things and cleanse my sinful heart" and write instead:

"take my profound love and admiration for the powerful wonderful creation and everything great and small in it and help me to use it all for your highest service as I dedicate my life to maximally manifesting in all matter and spirit the fullness of your goodness"-

So that is what I will pray at the Novena-

And I will invoke also one of my favorite Saints who sought to teach *Love*
Saint Therese of Lisieux, The Patron Saint of Common Sense
http://www.ignatiusinsight.com/features2005/sparrow_sttherese_nov05.asp