A Novena to Strengthen Virtue

Rachel Watkins shares her intent to participate in a nine-year novena focused on a different virtue each year.

We have all prayed novenas, haven’t we? Perhaps it was a for a specific intention for a rose from St. Thérèse or discernment about a job from St. Joseph. Novenas have a long history in our faith from the first recorded one in the Upper Room where the Blessed Mother and apostles awaited the descent of the Holy Spirt (Acts 1:12-14).

There is the traditional nine-day novena and longer ones of 30 days, but how about nine years? Yes, nine years! As Solène Tadié wrote in the National Catholic Register on Dec. 30, 2022, a nine-year novena to St. Joan has begun. This true marathon of prayer has “been intimated in France, with the aim go making it recover its original vocation of 'Eldest Daughter of the Church' and leading the rest of the world in a renewal of faith.”

This novena caught my eye as I was researching how to know the will of God. At the end of December, I was trying to go back to the basics of the Catholic life for 2023. I was finding myself bogged down with all the details of the busy life of wife, mother, and chief cook and bottle-washer. Despite my own prayer life and commitment to my faith, I found that I was going through my days more mechanically (by rote) rather than out of developed and beloved habits. These were robotic, mechanical days without a sense of joy and love for my vocation.

I am in a new season of my life and having added "grandmother" to my titles, I wanted to make sure I knew (as best as I could) God’s will for me. Hence the Google search; hence the discovery of the Nine-Year Novena to St. Joan. In addition to the short prayer, every year for the next nine, a new virtue or strength will be highlighted. As a fan of virtue (aren’t we all), through my work with the Little Flowers Girls Clubs I saw that this first year’s virtue is Obedience to God’s Will! I felt affirmed in my own desire to know His will seeing receive a #1 place of honor and began my own reassessment.

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In the end, not much is changing. I am, after all, still a happy wife to my darling husband, I remain head chef, and down to teaching my last two kids at home. What changed? Well, I’m striving to do everything with little more attention, joy and love. After all, what I am doing, no matter how dull and rote it is prone to be, is God’s will for me. It’s not as heroic as St. Joan’s, but it is my battlefield and I need to show up ready to fight.

Every day I need to fight the malaise of routine, the lies of the world that what I do is unimportant, and my own tendency to acedia (spiritual or mental sloth). In other words, I sometimes just don’t want to do the hard work, or even the light work of being the strong Catholic wife, mother, and teacher God is asking of me. This sloth is made worse as I can easily tell myself that my disability (MS) gives me permission to not even do what I am capable of! And believe me, I am more capable than warming the seat of my couch. Oh, the lies we tell ourselves when we don’t want to be faithful.

Click to tweet:
What I am doing, no matter how dull and rote it is prone to be, is God’s will for me. #CatholicMom

I’m joining St. Joan of Arc in the battlefield for France along with my own soul and my own little country right here in my home. Whether or not you join this novena, take heart from one of the lines from the prayer: