To some who are not Catholic, and heck to some who are, novenas seems like superstition, a relic of folk religion. Novenas are not incantations; they do not offer us magic if only we say certain words or do certain things. Alas, some Catholics are misguided about novenas. Have you ever attended a Mass where someone had stuck a copy of a novena to St. Jude in a pew? The flier says that if you go to church for nine days and leave a copy of the prayer behind, your request will be granted. This is a misuse of the Catholic treasure of a novena.

Father William P. Saunders, refers to this practice as “dispensing—machine Catholicism; just as a person puts the coin in the vending machine and presses the button to get the desired soda, here a person says the prayer, goes to Church, and is supposedly guaranteed that the request will be granted. So much for God’s will. What is really sad these days is that the person simply Xeroxes the letter; one would think they could at least hand-write it.” So what is a novena, exactly?

We set aside a time over nine days, and ask a certain saint to pray for us. Right now, I am praying my very first novena and perhaps some of you are praying along with me. I am meditating and learning about the life of Saint Joan of Arc, and asking her to pray for a special intention of mine.

I prefer to pray the same prayer to Saint Joan every day; it helps keep me disciplined and stick to the novena. But you can pray whatever you like. You can simply say “Saint Joan, pray for me in my time of trouble.” Novenas are not quid pro quo arrangements. It’s not as if I want X and if I pray a novena, Christ will grant me X. Perhaps at the nine days’ end, I will discern that X isn’t what Christ wants for me anyway. Perhaps I will find out that peace and joy come when I don’t receive what I think I need.

Having never prayed a novena before, I am discovering some of its benefits. Because I am praying the novena each morning, it  shapes to my days. I am praying, with Saint Joan near me as a heavenly companion. That helps keep me focused on Christ throughout my day. I feel Saint Joan’s  presence beside me.

For those of you who prefer variety in your novena prayers, here is another Novena to Saint Joan I found. This one focuses on soldiers everywhere.

O Joan, holy liberator of France, the powerful holy force in the days of old, as you yourself said, “Peace would be found only at the point of a lance,” who used the weapons of war when no other means were able to obtain a just Peace, take care and help today those who do not want to do violence and patiently try to employ all possible peaceful means of resolution, but now allow the violence of war.

Heroine of Orleans, transmit to our leaders, your talent to inspire your soldiers to accomplish great deeds of valor, in order that our soldiers’ efforts will come to a rapid and successful end.

Saint of the Country, excite in all souls, in every home of the world, the zeal to contribute to the salvation of the world and the return of peace, works which you crave, the rediscovery of a more Christian life, through holy thoughts and actions, forgiveness and persistent prayer, that as you yourself once said, “God must be served first.” Amen.

Ever wonder how an illiterate peasant girl was able to successfully command the French army? A girl who never had left her hometown, knew nothing of politics, military history or geography? One gift St. Joan had was a “seeing eye,” which meant she could discern the souls of others.

Take, for example, her bold decision to recruit the knight Étienne de Vignolles, a crude, profane military leader, to work with her during the Hundred Years’ War campaigns of 1429. ( His nickname was La Hire, which means “The Ire” in Old French. The knave’s face on the Jack of Heart is modeled after his.) Her comrades were appalled by this decision.  But St. Joan had the foresight to understand what an asset he would be to her troops. Indeed, he came to believe her mission was prophetic.

As recounted in Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc, at Saint Joan’s first meeting with La Hire, she told him that, as commander of the army camp, he was to restore order and discipline. “Loose women must pack out of the place at once..the rough carousing must stop, drinking must be brought within proper and defined limits, and discipline must take the place of disorder.”

Her final instruction to him was the most difficult: all soldiers must go to confession and then attend Mass daily. “The soldier sighed and said he would advertise the Mass, but said he doubted there was a man in the camp that was any more likely to go to it than he was himself.”

And then St. Joan pulled all her punches: La Hire himself would go to Mass.

“Well, he really went. It was hardly believable but there he was, striding along, holding himself grimly to his duty, and looking as pious as he could but growling and cursing like a fiend.” The two spent three days together in that camp, with Joan praying and pleading with him. At the end of those three days, La Hire prayed.

Here is how Noel Rainguesson, a character in Personal Recollections of Joan of Arc describes Saint Joan’s gift of bringing others to Christ.

“The common eye only sees the outside of things, and judges by that, but the seeing eye pierces through and reads the heart and soul, finding there capacities which the outsider didn’t indicate or promise, and which the other kind of eye couldn’t detect.” Do we have the faith to see beyond outward appearances? Do we believe the human heart can change?

Glorious St. Joan of Arc, filled with compassion for those who invoke you, with love for those who suffer, heavily laden with the weight of my troubles, I kneel at your feet and humbly beg you to take my present need under your special protection…(mention here).

Joan of Arc’s public ministry began and ended the year she was 17. She had grown up in a loving family who provided her with concrete examples of Christian charity. Historical records describe the D’Arc family as “willing to open their home to strangers and to share what they could with them.

People remembered how Joan would willingly give up her bed to these strangers while she herself slept by the hearth.” To leave her childhood home (pictured above, with the village church beside it) and follow her destiny, St. Joan left home without telling them her true destination and goal: fight the English at Orleans and have the Dauphin crowned king.

Her Uncle Durand asked her parents’ permission to take Joan to his home so that she could help his wife with the housework and to help her with the delivery of her child. While Joan was there, she convinced her uncle of her mission. In the end, her parents supported her; they walked to Reims to see the Dauphin crowned King Charles VII of France. Clearly, St. Joan and her family understood what St. Paul told the church in Corinth.

“As a body is one though it has many parts, and all the parts of the body, though many, are one body, so also Christ. For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, slaves or free persons, and we were all given to drink of one Spirit. Now the body is not a single part, but many.“

What risks are we taking to fulfill God’s plan for our lives? Are we willing to face the people and circumstances Christ places in front of us?

Glorious St. Joan of Arc, filled with compassion for those who invoke you, with love for those who suffer, heavily laden with the weight of my troubles, I kneel at your feet and humbly beg you to take my present need under your special protection…(mention here).

O most powerful Saint Joan, do not let me lose my soul, but obtain for me the grace of winning my way to heaven, forever and ever. Amen.

Given my recent enthusiasm for St. Joan of Arc, Frank suggested I pray a novena to her, asking her to intercede for my private intentions. Who better to ask to pray for us than St. Joan? She was a courageous warrior for Christ, country and family during a tumultuous time in her native land. Filled with the Holy Spirit, this peasant girl from the French countryside never stopped believing that the voices and visions that began coming to her when she was 13 were messages from God. This novena will end August 28, the feast day of Saint Augustine, who lived 1,000 years before St. Joan and “established anew the ancient faith.”

Even though I’m a lifelong Catholic, I did not know what a novena was until a few years ago. So in case you were as poorly cathecized as I, let me share what I found out:  a novena, which comes from the Latin word “novem”  for nine, is a series of prayers said over nine days to obtain special graces.  “They’ve been prayed since the very beginning of the Church — and before its official beginning: Mary and the Apostles prayed from His Ascension until Pentecost, a period of nine days (Acts 1). Also, a nine-day period of supplication was a pagan Roman and Eastern practice, so novenas were easily accepted by the earliest converts in these lands.”

Both Webster and Frank have shared their novenas with you. And so for the next nine days I invite all of you  who seek the intervention of this remarkable saint to pray along with me. Following this prayer, say an Our Father, a Hail Mary and a Glory Be.

Glorious St. Joan of Arc, filled with compassion for those who invoke you, with love for those who suffer, heavily laden with the weight of my troubles, I kneel at your feet and humbly beg you to take my present need under your special protection…(mention here).

Vouchsafe to recommend it to the Blessed Virgin Mary, and lay it before the throne of Jesus. Cease not to intercede for me until my request is granted. Above all, obtain for me the grace to one day meet God face to face and with you and Mary and all the angels and saints praise Him through all eternity.

O most powerful Saint Joan, do not let me lose my soul, but obtain for me the grace of winning my way to heaven, forever and ever. Amen.