Day 1: Novena to Our Lady of Good Help, Queen of Families February 1

Join The National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, America’s Marian Apparition Site, on this the first day of our nine-day Novena to Our Lady of Good Help: Queen of Families.   Pray remotely from wherever you are  by receiving the daily prayer intention of the Novena to Our Lady of Good Help: Queen of Families.  Go to our website (www.championshrine.org/novenas) and sign up to receive the daily prayer intention of this and other Novenas, or come pray with us during our daily 11:00 AM (CST) Mass time. Download the prayers from our Resources Page at www.championshrine.org or purchase the Our Lady of Good Help Queen of Families Novena booklet from our gift shop for $5.00 = each by calling 920-866-2571

Day 1: Novena for Families, Virtue of Hope

Opening Prayer:

Lord, You sent Your mother to Adele Brise to invite her to “pray for the conversion of sinners” and “gather the children in this wild country and teach them what they should know for salvation…”  Adele gave tirelessly in undertaking the work You set before her.  Ignite a flame in the hearts of all parents and awaken in them a loving and generous response to this timeless message.

Lord, teach us, the domestic church, and help us to recognize Your riches—our children.  Guide us, their primary educators, so that we may teach them what they should know for salvation and growth in holiness.  May we never relinquish our responsibility by allowing our children to be guided by the world and its false promises.  Help us to uphold the dignity of the family, through which we can bring hope to our world.

Father, through the grace of baptism, You made us Your adopted children. Help us to respond joyfully to Your gentle invitation to live in an abundant relationship with You.  

Jesus, enable us to transmit the fire of Your love to our children and those around us by frequenting the sacraments, praying faithfully, engaging in fruitful dialogue and modeling Christian virtue.  

Holy Spirit, guide us in caring for each should entrusted to us, cultivating an atmosphere in which You yourself can prune and fashion each child according to Your plan.

We ask all of this through the intercession of Our Lady of Good Help, Queen of Families.  

Amen. 

Day 1 Intercessory Prayer: Virtue of Hope

Adam and Eve, through your intercession, may God grant families the virtue of hope.  May your example of repentance help us to see that it is never too late to turn to God with sincere hearts.  Pray for us as we labor for the Lord, caring for the precious lives God has entrusted to us.  Help us to cling to the Church and Her sacraments, and to put our hope in the Savior and the Kingdom of Heaven.  May our relationship with God strengthen our faith and call us to deeper conversion, thereby witnessing to others the reason for our hope.

Prayer of the Family: The Threshold of Faith 

God, our loving Father and Creator, You invite families to participate in Your unique plan for salvation by entrusting to us the lives of our children, inscribing Your Divine image in their souls.  This image or “icon” illuminates our families with Your face, transfiguring our homes into domestic churches.  You stand at our thresholds knocking, waiting for us to throw open our doors and invite You to enter more fully into our family life.  Let us not ignore Your repeated knocking, but welcome You, embracing the graces You wish to give.  May these graces enable us to pass on the gift of our Catholic Faith to our children, giving them what they need for salvation and growth in holiness.  It is from the threshold of our domestic church that our families will bring glory to You and hope to the world.

Our Lady of Good Help, Queen of Heaven, implore your Son to strengthen the virtue of hope in our families in order to teach our children what they should know for salvation.