Indore: Sunday was a special day, offering eight day prayers in the nine-day long Novena organised at St Joseph Church, Nanda Nagar. To celebrate Novena, churches have been decorated with colourful lights, ornaments, sparkles, etc. marking the nine-day-long celebrations.
Novena comes from the Latin novem meaning "nine". It is an ancient tradition of devotional praying in Christianity, consisting of private or public prayers repeated for nine successive days or weeks.
Novena prayers are customarily printed in small booklets, and the novena is often dedicated to a specific angel, saint, a specific Marian title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or it invokes one of the personages of the Holy Trinity.
During the eight day of novena, the devotees made petitions, implored for favours, and obtained grace by worshiping Jesus Christ, and asking for intercessions of the Virgin Mary or the saints of the faith.
Nine days of novena celebration to celebrate the birthday of Blessed Virgin Mary, the earthly mother of Jesus Christ, commenced on August 30, 2020, shared Father Thomas Rajamanikam.
Around 5 to 7 people conduct the novena prayers in St Joseph's Church Nanda Nagar on Sunday. “Due to coronavirus outbreak, we are not allowing mass participation in church, but there is a live telecast through online portals, where people participate by assembling for the telecast with their respective families,” Rajamanikam said.
The prayers and novena starts at 6 pm and concludes at 8 pm. Usually novena prayers are attended by almost all community members, but due to the pandemic people are not able to attend the prayers physically.
“Today is the eight day of novena and it is novena Sunday, so we had special prayers and discourses,” Rajamanikam said. He added priests from all over the city were invited to give discourse.
“Priests are invited every day for preaching via telecast during novena,” Rajamanikam said.
From the bible, reading from Sunday
Blessed Virgin Mary did the will of God and became the helper of all the faithful people. She helped God by saying ‘Yes’ to the message of angel Gabriel who told her that the Holy Spirit will descend on her.
St. Luke's gospel states the following: "The Holy Spirit will come upon you and the power of the Most High will overshadow you: therefore the child to be born will be holy: he will be called ‘Son of God’."
