Blessed Sacrament Church,
Gooding Avenue, Braunstone, Leicester LE3 1JS
Theme:
The Christian Family:
Hearing the Cry of the Earth and the Cry of the Poor
9-Days Novena toSeñor Santo Niño de Cebuwith Readings and Reflections
12th to 20th of January 2018
prepared by
Santo Niño Leicester
Main Theme:
The Christian Family:
Hearing the Cry of the Earth and the Cry of the Poor
Led by the Spirit, the family circle is not only open to life by generating it within itself, but also by going forth and spreading life by caring for others and seeking their happiness. This openness finds particular expression in hospitality [...]. When a family is welcoming and reaches out to others, especially the poor and the neglected, it is “a symbol, witness and participant in the Church’s motherhood”. Social love, as a reflection of the Trinity, is what truly unifies the spiritual meaning of the family and its mission to others, for it makes present the kerygma in all its communal imperatives. The family lives its spirituality precisely by being at one and the same time a domestic church and a vital cell for transforming the world.
(Amoris Laetitia, 324)
Let us entrust our families and all families throughout the world especially those in difficulties to Jesus Christ - Señor Santo Niño, the King of Love and of Creation. May we all work towards the establishment of the Civilisation of Love in our world working tirelessly for justice and peace to reign and, with charity, mercy and compassion, proclaiming in words and in deeds: "The kingdom of God is at hand!" (Mk 1:15)
VIVA PIT SEÑOR!!!
SING: (Standing)
HOLY GOD, WE PRAISE THY NAME
Holy God, we praise Thy Name.
Lord of all! we bow before Thee;
All on earth Thy scepter claim,
All in heaven above adore Thee;
Infinite Thy vast domain,
Everlasting is Thy reign.
Hark! the loud celestial hymn,
Angels' choirs above are raising;
Cherubim and Seraphim
In unceasing chorus praising,
Fill the heavens with sweet accord,
Holy, Holy, Holy Lord!
In the name of the Father….
ACT OF CONTRITION
Oh, my Dear Jesus! You are our King and our God, because of Your love for us You came down from heaven born of the Virgin Mary. My heart weeps, for in spite of Your goodness we have committed many sins. Forgive us, O Jesus, for our sin of ingratitude in return for Your goodness, Strengthen our will to resist temptation and sin. With your Grace we will be able to fulfil our promises and share with Your glory in heaven.
Oh, Holy Child Jesus, who is ever good and loving, we kneel before You our true God. With humility we implore You to give us Your mercy and grant us all the favors we ask of You in this NOVENA, so that we will enjoy the blessings of heaven. AMEN.
READINGS AND REFLECTIONS
(select from pages 6–14 for the proper of the day)
PETITION (select from pages 6–14 for the proper of the day)
- Pray three OUR FATHERS, three HAIL MARYS, and GLORY BE…
- Now ask SEÑOR SANTO NIÑO to hear your prayers during this NOVENA (Pause for a moment)
SUPPLICATIONS TO SANTO NINO
Lord, have mercy on us.
Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us.
Jesus, hear us.
Jesus, graciously hear us.
In every need let us come to you with humble trust.
Santo Nino, help us.
In our doubts, perplexities and temptations,
Santo Nino, help us.
In hours of loneliness, weariness and trials,
Santo Nino, help us.
In the failure of our plans and hopes.
Santo Nino, help us.
In disappointments, troubles and sorrows,
Santo Nino, help us.
When others fail us, and Your Grace alone can assist us.
Santo Nino, help us.
When we throw ourselves on your tender love as our only refuge.
Santo Nino, help us.
When our heart is cast down by failure.
Santo Nino, help us.
When we are ill and our head and hands cannot work and we are lonely.
Santo Nino, help us.
When we feel impatient and our cross irritates us.
Santo Nino, help us.
Always, always, in spite of weakness, failings and shortcomings of every kind.
Santo Nino, help us.
Lamb of God, who take away the sins of the world:
Spare us. O Jesus.
Lamb of God who take away the sins of the world:
Graciously hear us, O Jesus
Lamb of God who take away the sins of the world:
Have mercy upon us, O Jesus.
Jesus, hear us.
Jesus, Graciously hear us.
Praise be the name of the Lord.
Now and forever
LET US PRAY
Oh, sweet and merciful Jesus! Señor Santo Niño, the source of all goodness, we kneel before Your sacred Image, imploring Your Divine aid for universal peace and brotherhood among all men, enlighten the unbelievers and the heathens so that they will believe you as their true God. Restore the faith of those who have wandered away from you, bring them back to Your fold with repentance in their hearts.
Grant also to faithful departed in Purgatory the remission of all their sins so that they will rest in peace forever. Finally, nourish and strengthen our faith in You so that we will serve You faithfully on earth. AMEN.
SING (Standing)
SEÑOR SANTO NIÑO HYMN
(E. Perez, S. Ezcurra)
1. One day in these Islands as gift and in pledge
God sent You to us, O Beloved Child.
And always You have been the light of our souls,
The guide of our people, the flame in our hearts.
Ref: Señor Santo Niño,
With Your scepter guide our people
Who hail You king forever,
Filipinas is your kingdom.
Señor Santo Niño,
In Your hands the world finds its rest;
Proclaim Your truth and justice,
Bring to men Your peace and love.
2. [this is actually verse 5 originally]
Now one as a nation we pay You respect;
Our people did pledge a long time ago.
We ask You to hear the prayers of all:
The sad and forsaken, the poor and the sick.
(repeat refrain)
1st Day – Believing with trust-filled faith in God
12th January 2018 (Friday)
Reading: From the Holy Gospel according to St Mark (2:1–5)
When Jesus returned to Capernaum after some days,it became known that he was at home.Many gathered together so that there was no longer room for them,not even around the door,and he preached the word to them.They came bringing to him a paralytic carried by four men.Unable to get near Jesus because of the crowd,they opened up the roof above him.After they had broken through,they let down the mat on which the paralytic was lying.When Jesus saw their faith, he said to him,"Child, your sins are forgiven."
(short pause)
Reflections:from ‘Amoris Laetitia’, Pope Francis' post-synodal apostolic exhortation on love in the family
183.[…] For their part, open and caring families find a place for the poor and build friendships with those less fortunate than themselves. In their efforts to live according to the Gospel, they are mindful of Jesus’ words: “As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me (Mt 25:40)”. In a very real way, their lives express what is asked of us all: “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your kinsmen or rich neighbours, lest they also invite you in return, and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the maimed, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed” (Lk 14:12-14). You will be blessed! Here is the secret to a happy family.
184.By their witness as well as their words, families speak to others of Jesus. They pass on the faith, they arouse a desire for God and they reflect the beauty of the Gospel and its way of life. Christian marriages thus enliven society by their witness of fraternity, their social concern, their outspokenness on behalf of the underprivileged, their luminous faith and their active hope. Their fruitfulness expands and in countless ways makes God’s love present in society.
(let us pause for a few moments for silent reflection)
PETITION (1st Day) – Faith
Oh, ever-wise Jesus, who in your wisdom, has sent zealous missionaries to our humble shores to preach the Gospel to our forefathers so that they would see the LIGHT and embrace the CATHOLIC FAITH, we humbly ask you to give us a living Faith so that we may always please you in all that we do. We ask you this in your holy name. Amen.
(go back to page 3)
2nd Day –Love and compassion to the loving and compassionate
13th January 2018 (Saturday)
Reading:From the Holy Gospel according to St Mark (2:16–17)
Some scribes who were Pharisees saw that Jesus was eating with sinnersand tax collectors and said to his disciples,"Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" Jesus heard this and said to them,"Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.I did not come to call the righteous but sinners."
(short pause)
Reflections:from ‘Laudato Si’, Pope Francis' encyclical letteron care for our common home
231.Love, overflowing with small gestures of mutual care, is also civic and political, and it makes itself felt in every action that seeks to build a better world. Love for society and commitment to the common good are outstanding expressions of a charity which affects not only relationships between individuals but also “macro-relationships, social, economic and political ones”. That is why the Church set before the world the ideal of a “civilization of love”. Social love is the key to authentic development: “In order to make society more human, more worthy of the human person, love in social life – political, economic and cultural – must be given renewed value, becoming the constant and highest norm for all activity”. In this framework, along with the importance of little everyday gestures, social love moves us to devise larger strategies to halt environmental degradation and to encourage a “culture of care” which permeates all of society. When we feel that God is calling us to intervene with others in these social dynamics, we should realize that this too is part of our spirituality, which is an exercise of charity and, as such, matures and sanctifies us.
(let us pause for a few moments for silent reflection)
PETITION (2nd Day) – Love
Oh, most-loving Jesus, who has shown your love to us by dying for us on the Cross and by giving yourself to us in the Holy Eucharist, we beseech you to share with us Your love so that we may always love You with all our heart, with all our soul and with all our strength, and also so that we may always love our neighbors as ourselves. This we ask you in Your holy name. Amen.
(go back to page 3)
3rd Day –Humbly serving one another like the Master
14th January 2018(Sunday)
Reading:From the book of Psalms (39:2, 4)
I have waited, waited for the LORD,
and he stooped toward me and heard my cry.
And he put a new song into my mouth,
a hymn to our God.
(short pause)
Reflections:from ‘Caritas in Veritate’, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI’s' encyclical letteron integral human development in charity and truth
48. Today the subject of development is also closely related to the duties arising from our relationship to the natural environment. The environment is God's gift to everyone, and in our use of it we have a responsibility towards the poor, towards future generations and towards humanity as a whole. When nature, including the human being, is viewed as the result of mere chance or evolutionary determinism, our sense of responsibility wanes. In nature, the believer recognizes the wonderful result of God's creative activity, which we may use responsibly to satisfy our legitimate needs, material or otherwise, while respecting the intrinsic balance of creation. If this vision is lost, we end up either considering nature an untouchable taboo or, on the contrary, abusing it. Neither attitude is consonant with the Christian vision of nature as the fruit of God's creation.
Nature expresses a design of love and truth. It is prior to us, and it has been given to us by God as the setting for our life. Nature speaks to us of the Creator (cf. Rom 1:20) and his love for humanity. It is destined to be “recapitulated” in Christ at the end of time (cf. Eph 1:9-10; Col 1:19-20). Thus it too is a “vocation”. Nature is at our disposal not as “a heap of scattered refuse”, but as a gift of the Creator who has given it an inbuilt order, enabling man to draw from it the principles needed in order “to till it and keep it” (Gen 2:15). But it should also be stressed that it is contrary to authentic development to view nature as something more important than the human person. This position leads to attitudes of neo-paganism or a new pantheism — human salvation cannot come from nature alone, understood in a purely naturalistic sense. This having been said, it is also necessary to reject the opposite position, which aims at total technical dominion over nature, because the natural environment is more than raw material to be manipulated at our pleasure; it is a wondrous work of the Creator containing a “grammar” which sets forth ends and criteria for its wise use, not its reckless exploitation. Today much harm is done to development precisely as a result of these distorted notions. Reducing nature merely to a collection of contingent data ends up doing violence to the environment and even encouraging activity that fails to respect human nature itself. Our nature, constituted not only by matter but also by spirit, and as such, endowed with transcendent meaning and aspirations, is also normative for culture. Human beings interpret and shape the natural environment through culture, which in turn is given direction by the responsible use of freedom, in accordance with the dictates of the moral law. Consequently, projects for integral human development cannot ignore coming generations, but need to be marked by solidarity and inter-generational justice, while taking into account a variety of contexts: ecological, juridical, economic, political and cultural.
(let us pause for a few moments for silent reflection)
PETITION (3rd Day) – Humility
Oh, Jesus, who said, “Learn from me because I am meek and humble of heart”, grant us the virtues of meekness and humility so that we may progress in our spiritual life, and so that our neighbour may see your Image in us. We ask you this in your holy name. Amen.
(go back to page 3)
4th Day –Kind and forgiving like the Father
15th January 2018 (Monday)
Reading:From the Holy Gospel according to St Mark (2:21–22)
No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak.If he does, its fullness pulls away,the new from the old, and the tear gets worse.Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins,and both the wine and the skins are ruined.Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.
(short pause)
Reflections:from‘CentesimusAnnus’,Saint Pope John Paul II'sencyclical letteron the hundreth anniversary of
Rerum Novarum
37. Equally worrying is the ecological question which accompanies the problem of consumerism and which is closely connected to it. In his desire to have and to enjoy rather than to be and to grow, man consumes the resources of the earth and his own life in an excessive and disordered way. At the root of the senseless destruction of the natural environment lies an anthropological error, which unfortunately is widespread in our day. Man, who discovers his capacity to transform and in a certain sense create the world through his own work, forgets that this is always based on God's prior and original gift of the things that are. Man thinks that he can make arbitrary use of the earth, subjecting it without restraint to his will, as though it did not have its own requisites and a prior God-given purpose, which man can indeed develop but must not betray. Instead of carrying out his role as a co-operator with God in the work of creation, man sets himself up in place of God and thus ends up provoking a rebellion on the part of nature, which is more tyrannized than governed by him.
In all this, one notes first the poverty or narrowness of man's outlook, motivated as he is by a desire to possess things rather than to relate them to the truth, and lacking that disinterested, unselfish and aesthetic attitude that is born of wonder in the presence of being and of the beauty which enables one to see in visible things the message of the invisible God who created them. In this regard, humanity today must be conscious of its duties and obligations towards future generations.
38. In addition to the irrational destruction of the natural environment, we must also mention the more serious destruction of the human environment, something which is by no means receiving the attention it deserves. Although people are rightly worried — though much less than they should be — about preserving the natural habitats of the various animal species threatened with extinction, because they realize that each of these species makes its particular contribution to the balance of nature in general, too little effort is made to safeguard the moral conditions for an authentic "human ecology". Not only has God given the earth to man, who must use it with respect for the original good purpose for which it was given to him, but man too is God's gift to man. He must therefore respect the natural and moral structure with which he has been endowed. In this context, mention should be made of the serious problems of modern urbanization, of the need for urban planning which is concerned with how people are to live, and of the attention which should be given to a "social ecology" of work.