my first novena at Novena ^^

Today I attended Novena Devotion to Our Mother of Perpetual Help at Novena Church at 2p.m. I was amazed mainly because there were A LOT OF PEOPLE praying. They have novena devotion every hour every Saturday. A lot of people were also queuing to make confession.

According to www.newadvent.org, novena is "a nine days of private or public devotion in the Catholic Church to obtain special graces". We can also do novena once a week for 9 consecutive weeks. If you want to see how a novena is like,we can go together :)

The last time I attended public Novena before last Saturday was loooooooooonnnnnnnggggg time ago in Jakarta. There was a novena devoted to a saint (I forgot his name..duhh) in my cousin's parish. I like the "petitions and thanksgiving letters-reading" part. People might think that 'ah..it's just a normal thanksgiving or petition', but I felt that for someone to write such a nice letter to Our Lady,it really seems that the person really felt her intercession and how God really worked on his or her life. When I listened to the petition, I could also feel how the person had put so much confidence and at the same time,he or she surrendered to God's will.

My mom likes to attend public novena. I'm still learning to persevere like her. I'm always amazed by how she really commits herself every week to attend public Novena when there's a chance to do so.I know she's praying for the conversion of my father. I remembered when I asked her a few years ago,"Mom,are you tired of asking Lord?" and she answered me,"I believe if God wants and the time is right,He'll change your father 180 degrees :P." Until now she always asks me to pray for my dad while honestly,sometimes I feel that I'm not persevering enough. It has been so many years till sometimes I 'forget' to pray for this special intention. But even when I did pilgrimage last week,my mom SMS me,"pray for your dad."

When I read the novena prayer,I felt that the prayer really strengthened me. Today we use set 4 and it was written in the personal petitions:
* That I may always trust and turn to God for help in coping with life's problems
*　That I may be concerned with the needs of he least of my brothers and sisters.
*　That I will always try to forgive those who hurt me.
At that moment I　thought,even though we might feel that 'Oh, I don't really have BIG problem or a particular intention', the content of novena will still very useful for us and can draw us closer to God. *and during novena, we don't only say petitions,there are some other prayers*