Novena to St. Catherine of Siena

April 30th.

1. By that spirit of prayer which was your delight from your infancy: obtain for us the love and practice of prayer, and that we may so perform it as to render it worthy to be granted. Gloria.

2. By that especial love which you, O great Saint, bore to the virtue of purity, consecrating yourself at eight years of age to the Lord by an irrevocable vow, and afterwards by cutting off your hair, by sighs and tears, rejecting the most honourable and advantageous offer of marriage: obtain for us, we pray you, the grace to be always pure in mind and heart, and to detest and abhor every thing which could offend in the smallest degree against a virtue so sublime, which raises men to the rank of angels, and makes them most beloved by God. Gloria.

3. By that spirit of retirement which made you, O great Saint, desire to behold no one but your Jesus; and when distracted by continual employment in your family, taught you to build a solitude in your heart and keep it at all times filled with thoughts of heaven: obtain for us, we pray, the grace so to love solitude and retirement, however the world may invite us to share its pleasures and its pomps, that our hearts may always turn to God amidst the most dissipating cares which may come upon us in our state of life. Gloria.

4. By the spirit of penance which taught you to inflict upon yourself, even in your earliest years, the most painful and severe mortifications: obtain for us the grace to bear with patience whatever afflictions God may be pleased to order for our good, and to mortify voluntarily all the perverse inclinations of our hearts, and all the unruly desires of our senses, that we may become, in some measure, like our crucified model, Jesus. Gloria.

5. By that heroic charity which led you, O great Saint, to attend and minister with your own hands to the poor sick who had been abandoned by all others in disgust, and for which you were repaid only by insult, rudeness, and persecution: obtain of the Lord for us the grace to be, at all times, equally ready to assist our neighbour in his necessities, and to pardon him generously when he returns only insults for the benefits we confer on him, that we may merit the blessedness promised in this life, and the next to meekness and true mercy. Gloria.

6. By that wonderful constancy, with which, by redoubling your prayers, your austerities, and your zeal, O great Saint, you dispersed the powers of hell, which, arrayed against you, persecuted you for so long a time with frightful images and violent temptations, and for which you received a reward from your Divine Spouse, the privilege of speaking familiarly with His Saints and His most blessed Mother Mary, and also were favoured with ecstasies, visions, and revelations, and the most intimate communications with His Divine Majesty: obtain for us, we pray you, the grace to be equally powerful against the assaults of our spiritual enemies, and that we may, in reward of our fidelity, increase in Divine love, and obtain an inseparable union with our true Good. Gloria.

7. By that supernatural light with which you, O great Saint, were miraculously enabled to counsel the Roman Pontiff, who came in person to consult you, when you obtained for him a reconciliation with his adversaries, and his return to Rome: obtain for us of the Lord the grace to know, in all our doubts, that which is most conformable to the will of God, and most conducive to the salvation of souls, that in all our actions we may promote the honour of God and the welfare of our neighbour. Gloria.

8. By that especial devotion which you, O great Saint, had to Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament, who sometimes communicated you with His own hands: obtain for us, we pray you, the grace to feel towards the Blessed Sacrament the most fervent devotion, that we may rejoice to converse with Jesus and receive Him into our bosoms, for His honour and glory, and for the salvation of our own souls. Gloria.

9. By the extraordinary love which you had for suffering, for which you were accounted worthy to share in the most bitter pains of your crucified Spouse; and, through which, though reduced to the extremest weakness, you became a spectacle of admiration to all around you by the serenity and joy with which you endured the most frightful torments: obtain for us, of the Lord, grace to receive with Christian resignation and holy joy all the crosses with which God shall be pleased to visit us, so that, after bearing the mortification of Christ in our bodies, we may, with you, share in the fulness of His blessedness for all eternity. Gloria.