Day 9: Novena for Families, Gifts of Fortitude and Fear of the Lord

Join The National Shrine of Our Lady of Good Help, America’s Marian Apparition Site, on this ninth day of our nine-day Novena to Our Lady of Good Help: Queen of Families. Pray remotely from wherever you are as you listen to Relevant Radio by receiving the daily prayer intention of the Novena to Our Lady of Good Help: Queen of Families. Go to our website (www.shrineofourladyofgoodhelp.com) 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.

Day 9: Novena for Families, Gifts of Fortitude and Fear of the Lord

Day 9 Intercessory Prayer: Gifts of Fortitude and Fear of the Lord

Saint Gianna, you once said we cannot love without suffering or suffer without loving. Your immense love of God and your family enabled you to make heroic sacrifices. Please pray that God grant the gift of fortitude to our families. It is only through this Divine gift that we will have the courage to accept and embrace suffering. Help us to believe the Lord who says, “my yoke is easy, and my burden light” (Matt. 11:30). Pray that we might foster the gift of fear of the Lord in the hearts of our children. Help us to teach them to hear His gentle promptings, to walk His path of holiness and to trust in the graces He gives to persevere in sufferings, uniting us eternally with our family in heaven.

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 gifts of fortitude and fear of the Lord in our families in order to teach our children what they should know for salvation.