Have I messed up the St. Andrew Christmas novena already?

[PaulMatthewM]

I’m saying the St. Andrew Christmas novena that you are supposed to say every day from the feast of St. Andrew until Christmas. I forgot to say it today. Well, I just said it but it’s 1:00 AM, so it’s technically tomorrow. Does it still count?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

I forgot to say it today. Well, I just said it but it’s 1:00 AM, so it’s technically tomorrow. Does it still count?

Not if you treat the novena superstitiously. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states:

Superstition is the deviation of religious feeling and of the practices this feeling imposes. It can even affect the worship we offer the true God, e.g., when one attributes an importance in some way magical to certain practices otherwise lawful or necessary.* To attribute the efficacy of prayers or of sacramental signs to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition* (CCC 2111, emphasis added).

In other words, attributing the efficacy of the novena merely to whether or not you pray it each and every day between November 30 and December 25 is superstitious, and superstition in prayer is to be avoided. Just do your best to pray the prayer every day of the novena, setting up daily reminders for yourself if you like, but do not worry if you accidentally miss a day. You can either pray the forgotten day(s)’ prayers when you remember or pick up the novena at the current point.