Novenas are beautiful devotions and are a wonderful addition to your home prayer life with your family. 

A novena is a prayer, typically with a petition, that is repeated nine times. The word “novena” is derived from the Latin word “novem,” meaning nine. Usually, it is said nine days in a row, but you can also say a nine week novena or a quicker nine hour novena in one day. 

One of the benefits of saying a novena with your children is that it naturally encourages a devotion to frequent prayer. When we say a novena in our family, it is usually one of our kids who does the reminding. They seem to have a particular sense that it would be sad to forget a day and are proud when they can remind us all to say our novena. 

You can easily add a novena to your homeschool day. Pray for nine days in the morning after breakfast, add it to your lunchtime routine, or pray at night with the whole family gathered for night prayers. 

How do you properly pray a novena? Praying novenas is simple! You can use these novena prayers we’ve collected or you can simply say your own prayers over the course of the nine days. Typically, you conclude novena prayers with an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be, but that is optional. With some novenas, you pray the same prayer each day. Others may have specific prayers for each of the nine days. 

And what if you miss a day? It happens to all of us! You can simply add the missed day’s prayers to your next morning prayers or even add a day at the end. God gives us the grace we need even when we falter. 

Novena prayers, just as with all prayers to God, may not be answered in the particular way we imagine. But God is generous with his grace and answers our open and pleading hearts in a way that is truly best for our souls.