Q&A for How to Pray a Novena

You can mention your intention as many times as you like and whenever you feel you need to! Doing so will help you focus on the purpose and object of your prayer.

Some novenas, like the Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Novena, are prayed with a rosary, but others don't require it.

Adding a rosary to any novena is a great way to strengthen your prayer and devotion, but it's not required.

You can pray a novena as many times as you feel you need to, and in whatever time frame works for you.

You can do a Novena without fasting, but prayers and fasting always go well together. Fasting shows your devotion. If you can, it's best to do both.

Yes, nothing should prevent you from completing your prayers, including living with your boyfriend.

Yes. Some novenas will call you to recite the same prayer each time, while others will call for a different prayer each time.

A novena is a prayer, not a sacrament, so go for it! Everyone prays, and a novena is a beautiful way to be intentional in prayer. Just open your heart to whatever God wants to show you, whenever He wants to show it to you.

That is up to you. It would be best to limit them to just a few and write them down and place the list with the Novena prayer. However, the Divine Mercy Novena already has set intentions for each day, as this Novena was given to the Church by Christ Himself and He wanted certain intentions to be prayed for.

There are some novenas which request distribution or publication upon finishing the novena or upon having your request granted. How you do this is up to you. You may tell friends or leave copies in churches or other locations. You can also publish by sharing a link to the novena on Facebook or other internet portals.

There is no 'best way' to fast. A fast is a personal period of concentration and meditation in prayer. It is often considered better to force discipline, as this is what seems to make us humans more focused, by eliminating food or certain foods for a period of time during this period of prayer.

A Novena is usually started nine days before a feast, with the feast day falling on the tenth day. However, some may be done nine consecutive days after the feast day.

It is up to you. I personally believe it would be best not to share it, because prayer should always be done silently and privately. If you think it would spiritually benefit the person to tell them, at least wait until you have prayed it all nine days for that person.

Yes, novena is named after its nine days but there are other ones like the 54 day novena, where you pray a rosary a day for 54 days in a row.

A Novena is not a sacrament which requires a state of grace. However, just asking this question tells me that you believe you are in a state of sin, so I would advise you to pray for grace.

Any day is fine as long as you can continue it for nine full days after starting.

For best mediation and fasting, one should have one novena at time, but one can have more than one.

On the end of the day in preparation and anticipation of a Church feast day, sacrament, or similar spiritual events.

Saying a novena leading up to a feast is a traditional way of preparing for the feast. One very common example is the Novena of Divine Mercy, which goes from Good Friday to the Saturday after Easter (the day before Divine Mercy Sunday) as a way to prepare for Divine Mercy Sunday. However, you may start most novenas any time you want.

There are many different novena prayers. Pray More Novenas is a website that has a wealth of novenas that you can pray, and you can sign up for their mailing list to get them delivered to you!

The norm would be that the Novena for the deceased would be the day of death and last for 9 days. You will note that some people will start the Novena on the day of death and finish it on the day of the funeral, but it is best to complete the full nine days.

Yes. God's mercy is unconditional and free. Living in the state of grace brings us closer to God. Respecting the sacraments helps us maintain this grace.

No.

A novena may be said at anytime but there are specific novenas before specific Church feasts/events.

There's no such thing as luck. You are either in a state of grace or not. Love your enemy and do good to those who wrong you so with your meekness and humbleness your enemies will realize that God is all Love.

The intention of novenas is for good, therefore praying a novena to wish bad on people is not beneficial to anyone, especially the person praying.

That's not a good idea, as you need much fluid and nutrients while breastfeeding to support the breast milk.

Your best option of finding out is through a local Urdu church.

That, my friend, is one of the questions that, as the joke goes, even God cannot answer. There is pretty much an unlimited number of novenas, ranging from reciting a specific prayer daily for nine days to elaborate prayer services and activities for nine days. There's even a "novena of novenas" where you do nine novenas in a row.

If you are praying for nine hours in one day, you don't have to do it for nine days. The nine-hour version is a shorter version. If you decide to pray a nine day novena, you only have to say the prayer once a day.