Novena to St. Benedict

Novena to St. Benedict, Abbot. ¹

1. BY that extraordinary love which you, O great Patriarch St. Benedict, evinced for retirement and mortification when you concealed yourself at the age of fifteen in the wilderness, where you were not content to feed solely on roots and to sleep on the bare ground, but also tormented your body with a rough hair shirt which you wore till your death: obtain for us all the grace to abhor all the pomps and vanities of the seductive world, and to apply ourselves continually to the abnegation of our own will and the mortification of the flesh.

Glory be, etc.

2. By the heroic intrepidity with which you, O great Patriarch St. Benedict, despised all the artifices of the devil, who attempted to drive you from your solitude, and by the complete victory which you obtained over your evil imaginations by casting yourself naked amidst thorns and briars: obtain for us all the grace to rise superior to all the assaults of the infernal enemy, and to be always ready to endure any evil rather than to stain our souls with a single sin.

Glory be, etc.

3. By the generosity with which you, O great Patriarch St. Benedict, pardoned your subjects, who, after having chosen you superior, began to persecute you in the most unworthy manner, even attempting to poison you: obtain for us all the grace to suffer in peace the persecutions and contempt with which it shall please God to visit us during the few days of this our mortal life.

Glory be, etc.

4. By that truly apostolic zeal with which you, O great Patriarch St. Benedict, broke the idols in pieces, pulled down the temples, burnt the woods which retained the inhabitants of Monte Cassino in the darkness of paganism, and established the faith of Jesus Christ, through the whole neighborhood, by the erection of your monastery; by that ardent love of God and your neighbor which led you to lay the foundation of that great Order which has given to the Church hundreds of saints, and so many distinguished laborers in literature and science, obtain for us the grace to employ our powers for the good of our neighbor.

Glory be, etc.

5. By that supernatural light, by which you, great Patriarch St. Benedict, revealed to your religious brethren the time at which you would pass to eternity, obtain for us all the grace to be always llike you, humble, mortified, and fervent, and that we may receive from God the lights needful to guide us in the way of sanctity, and may continually and diligently seek our eternal salvation.

PRAYER FOR A HAPPY DEATH IN HONOR OF ST. BENEDICT.

O HOLY father St. Benedict, blessed by God, both in grace and in name, who, whilst standing in prayer with thy hands raised up to heaven, didst most happily yield thy angelic spirit into the hands of thy Creator, and hast promised zealously to defend against all the snares of the enemy, in the last struggle of death, those who shall daily commemorate thy glorious departure, and thy heavenly joys; protect me, I beseech thee this day, and every day, by thy paternal blessing, that I may never be separated from our blessed Lord, from thyself and the company of all the blessed. Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen.

PRAYER TO ST. SCHOLASTICA.

WE beseech thee, St. Scholastica, do thou, who couldst not be sated or wearied with the words of grace which flowed from the lips of thy brother, the great Patriarch St. Benedict; do thou, whose pure soul, on its departure from its mortal habitation, was seen soaring toward heaven in the likeness of a dove, as if to give testimony that thy life had been enriched with the fullest gifts of the Holy Spirit, obtain for us from God the gift of prayer and of contemplation, and of listening with zeal and docility to all instructions; come to our aid in the pursuit of all the virtues that should adorn a good Religious, and be our defence against all our enemies, “that we may stand in the evil day and be in all things perfect,” through Jesus Christ Our Lord. Amen.