We have all seen them. Prayers printed in the newspaper. “Never known to fail”. But you have to publish your own ad.
It seems to me like a chain letter.
What do others think?
Surely this can’t be approoved by the church?
I actually had a conversation about this with my pastor, and he warned me against these notices along with the mindset of using a novena in the hope that “it will never fail” (although the novenas in themselves might be ok). If a newspaper novena happens to “work”, it’s because God willed that your wishes and intentions would be granted and not some magical power in the novena itself. That would lead it into the superstition category if we used it as such. :nope:
However, this isn’t to say one shouldn’t be grateful to God if a novena’s intentions are answered, and one may post a notice praising God and the particular saint if s/he so wishes (as far as I know). But to say in the notice that the novena will never “fail”? God’s intentions aren’t always our intentions, so in that sense, they will “fail” if God’s will isn’t the same as ours.
But what is bad about saying a prayer? Surely there is merit in saying a prayer correctly, otherwise the Roman Missal wouldn’t have been reviced recently.
Also, again, how does this relate to the woman touching Jesus’ cloak? If she touched His cloak and didn’t get healed, now what?
There’s nothing bad about saying prayers – of course we should pray!
But again, remember what Jesus said to the woman in this case when she was healed: “But he said to her: Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go thy way in peace.” (
Luke 8:48, D-R)
She wasn’t healed because she was thinking, “if I touch his cloak exactly at the hem of his garment where the linen thread is with the tip of my fingers, I will be fully and completely healed from my illness, but God forbid that I touch the seam instead!” She was healed because she fully believed in the power of Jesus coming through whatever He blessed – that is not superstition. And if she wasn’t healed when she touched Jesus, it would mean that God just didn’t plan to heal her at that moment. (Or in the case of St. Paul in
Acts 19:11–12 – or with any saint & their relics – it’s because God is working through the sanctity of that person to bless and help people conform to God’s will, as
this link says – again, similar to the woman who touched Jesus’ cloak.)
As an example from my own experience, I have offered Mass Intentions with the hope that they would heal people from brain cancer and the like, but some of them die anyway, despite my wishes to the contrary. Was my Mass offering superstitious? No – it was an act of charity and a complete trust in God, knowing that I had no say in whether they would be cured or not and that I was completely dependent on God’s Will & Divine Mercy.
Regarding your other point, the Bishops revised the English version of the OF Missal because after many years, they thought that the liturgical prayers should state our key beliefs in a more refined and straightforward matter (especially when it comes to discrepancies between the original Latin text and the English translation). For example,
take note of the link here and see how the present text is now more lined up with what was said in the EF (although, of course, they’re still not the same, but it’s a start
).
Again, the “
lex orandi, lex credendi” maxim is the reason why there are Mass/Divine Liturgy rubrics – it’s not because the priests are superstitious in saying the exact thing. Rather, it’s because by praying, we express what we believe about God, ourselves, and our relationship towards the Divine and the Sacraments/Mysteries (which is exactly why saying that “it will never fail” on a notice is not good, because it distorts our knowledge of spiritual reality).
