Tuesday, February 12, 2008

St. Valentine's Day Novena

Thanks to Gus Lloyd of The Catholic Channel on Sirius Radio, there is a movement afoot to say a St. Valentine's Day Novena to Saint Raphael the Archangel who is the patron saint of love, lovers and young people.

Are you single (as in, unmarried)? Know someone who is? Say this novena for them beginning on St. Valentine's Day, February 14th for 9 days (the traditional length of a novena, which comes from the length of time the Apostles stayed in the upper room praying between the Ascension of Christ and the Coming of the Holy Spirit on Pentecost.)

Here is the St. Raphael Novena prayer:

St. Raphael, you were sent by God to guide young Tobias in choosing a good and virtuous spouse. Please help me (or insert name here) in this important choice which will affect my/his/her whole future. You not only directed Tobias in finding a wife, but you also gave him guidelines which should be foremost in every Christian marriage: "Pray together before making important decisions."

Amen.

5 comments:

Michele said...

i really love these stained glass pics you put up:) really nice. hope your doing well:)

Anonymous said...

Lovely post..

Staying in Balance said...

Thanks, guys!

Anonymous said...

thank you so much for posting this.

I'm in a real pickle and St. Valentine's feast day is coming up. I needed someone's help and so I did a search for a novena to him. I remember reading that Rafael is the patron of single people. I'm also a huge, huge devotee of Saint Dymphna - she's truly one of my best friends, I write to her all the time and she always helps me. ... So when I saw your blog come up on the results, I knew this was what I was supposed to find.

Thank you again.

Staying in Balance said...

I'm so glad you found this novena!

Dymphna's favorite quotes


"Slavery ended in medieval Europe only because the church extended its sacraments to all slaves and then managed to impose a ban on the enslavement of Christians (and of Jews). Within the context of medieval Europe, that prohibition was effectively a rule of universal abolition. "— Rodney Stark

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