"Wish-granting" novena pamphlets at our parish

[z_0101]

To those who think these novenas are bad thing:
Nobody should tell ever someone not to pray, which in effect you are doing when telling people not to believe in these novenas.

It’s not the novenas themselves. Those are not the problem. Most of them are in fact approved by legitimate authority. Most of the time, but not always.

The problem is the (often) superstitious messages added to the Novenas. Things like “you must make 45 copies of this and pass it to friends” or “if you mail this to 50 people you’ll win the lottery” or “you will be condemned to eternal hellfire if you don’t make 100 copies and put them in the pews.” etc. etc. etc. That’s why they’re a problem.

There are all kinds of other inappropriate messages added to such novenas. Often these go directly against Church teaching (like intentions to put an end to the Ordinary Form of the Mass).

Novenas? Yes! Inappropriate messages added to them? No!

• Fr David, well said and almost word for word what my Sr. Pastor told me when I inquired as to why we pull these pamphlets. I kind of used the prayer argument as LostSheep does with Fr. and he explained, the problem with these pamphlets is not only what you’ve stated above but also that once you let them start, then literally thousands start to show up.

(@ Lost_Sheep)

• Love scientist turned priest, about 3 years ago, I proposed an experiment with these things. For three months we pulled as normal and counted to get an approximate weekly count. Then we’d only pulled these things when found only twice a month for three months with the exception being that obviously anti-christian/anti-Catholic to be pulled on sight. By the end of the experiment, the back of the church, the back four pews, the racks, and half the hymnals were filled with these things. It was so bad the that parishioners were asking the ushers why we were not pulling the pamphlets anymore. We counted over 3000 (no not a typo, 3000) pamphlets per week up from a few hundred a week when we started. It took us almost a year of diligent pulling to get things back under some sort of control. We figured that this activity represented only about 1 or 2 percent of our parish. Can you imagine if everyone in the parish did this? We would have to hire a person to come in just to clean up and remove the pamphlets!
• Why we prayed over the novenas before we recycled them… because quite often someone has a legitimate prayer and a need and so we ask for the intercession of our Lord, if it be his will, to grant these legitimate prayer intentions or to give the family the grace to handle the situation.
• One thing of note, we brought our prayer candles back to service after almost a decade of non-use per our congregation’s request. The novenas have actually been reduced by about a third to a half of what we used to pull and we’ve added a prayer intentions book that our perpetual adoration members include in our prayers which dropped those things even more… IMHO, the adoration book is much better than a novena, because the prayer intention is every day, 24 hours a day, for as long as that book and the need exists.

 

[Lost_Sheep]

The problem is the (often) superstitious messages added to the Novenas. Things like “you must make 45 copies of this and pass it to friends” or “if you mail this to 50 people you’ll win the lottery” or “you will be condemned to eternal hellfire if you don’t make 100 copies and put them in the pews.” etc. etc. etc. That’s why they’re a problem.

Most of the novenas I’ve seen (and yes, prayed) are more like “leave six copies in the pews,” etc. Nothing about handing them out to specific friends or people.

The way I see it, you are simply making the novena available to others to help them in their time of need as well. No superstition attached.

 

[Memaw]

Most of the novenas I’ve seen (and yes, prayed) are more like “leave six copies in the pews,” etc. Nothing about handing them out to specific friends or people.

The way I see it, you are simply making the novena available to others to help them in their time of need as well. No superstition attached.

Maybe your right and all our good Pastors are wrong, but I doubt it! God Bless, memaw

 

[Lost_Sheep]

Maybe your right and all our good Pastors are wrong, but I doubt it! God Bless, memaw

I don’t profess to be right about anything except that which works for me.

 

[SMHW]

Most of the novenas I’ve seen (and yes, prayed) are more like “leave six copies in the pews,” etc. Nothing about handing them out to specific friends or people.

The way I see it, you are simply making the novena available to others to help them in their time of need as well. No superstition attached.

I think the big problem with some of these is the absolute nature of the steps and the focus on the predicted results, whether good or bad.

 

[z_0101]

let’s calm down here… no one is (or should be) saying anything about anyone here… please forgive and forget - I would hate to have this thread closed when there is / are some really good possibilities for discussion.

 

[Elizium23]

The first time I found such a pamphlet in our church narthex, I brought it to the attention of the pastor. He demonstrated very clearly that I should crumple it up very tightly and deposit it securely in the circular file. I think these so-called “novenas” are abhorrent, thinly disguised chain letters, Catholic spam. Prayers should encourage the faithful to do good works, not to clutter up the pews with trash. “If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is.” Many times there are absurd promises attached to these novenas. Releasing 1000 souls from Purgatory is a good one. Never been known to fail! But wait, there’s more! Act now while supplies last!

The church is not a marketplace for charlatans, the church is a holy temple of prayer. Only charlatans promote these novenas, and they are leading people away from Christ, not towards Him.

 

[SMHW]

Most of the novenas I’ve seen (and yes, prayed) are more like “leave six copies in the pews,” etc. Nothing about handing them out to specific friends or people.

The way I see it, you are simply making the novena available to others to help them in their time of need as well. No superstition attached.

The OP mentioned several danger phrases:
Must be prayed 6 times each day for 9 consecutive days. Leave 9 copies in Church each day.

PRAYER WILL BE ANSWERED ON OR BEFORE THE 9TH DAY

HAS NEVER KNOWN TO FAIL

You will RECEIVE YOUR INTENTION on or before the 9th day NO MATTER HOW IMPOSSIBLE. Pray in faith.

I consider the word “must” to be a danger sign in and of itself. The instruction to leave nine copies each day gives the impression (even if it does not specifically say so) that it is part of the “recipe” for the novena. This wording is designed to make people fearful if they do not follow the directions exactly.

God answers prayers on His timeline and that might not be some obvious answer on or before the ninth day.

 

[styrgwillidar]

Superstition is the correct term. It is promoting the belief that somehow we can compel God to do something, losing sight of the fact that He can say no. It is placing emphasis on the outward actions vice the interior disposition. From the catechism:

2111 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.41

2562 Where does prayer come from? Whether prayer is expressed in words or gestures, it is the whole man who prays. But in naming the source of prayer, Scripture speaks sometimes of the soul or the spirit, but most often of the heart (more than a thousand times). According to Scripture, it is the heart that prays. If our heart is far from God, the words of prayer are in vain.

To me, that’s the problem, it is emphasizing a procedure/process almost as if it is magic with a power in and of itself vice what it is. Simply the means to a goal of raising our heart and mind to God.

 

[Nintendo2000]

I spoke with my parish priest about this today. (Didn’t get to meet him last Sunday.)

He seemed really busy so he just told me that he knew about them and already asked for them to be thrown away (which was pretty weird, considering the piles of wish-granting novenas in the pews). He told me to discard any similar things away.

I didn’t get to mention the SSPX magazine though – would it be considered stealing if I took it, too?

 

[thistle]

Recently I noticed a growing number of these kinds of pamphlets in our parish bookshelf (they keep it inside the adoration chapel):

NOVENA TO ST. JUDE

Must be prayed 6 times each day for 9 consecutive days. Leave 9 copies in Church each day.

PRAYER WILL BE ANSWERED ON OR BEFORE THE 9TH DAY

HAS NEVER KNOWN TO FAIL

…followed by a (legit) set of prayers…

MAKE 81 COPIES
Leave 9 copies in Church each day for 9 consecutive days. You will RECEIVE YOUR INTENTION on or before the 9th day NO MATTER HOW IMPOSSIBLE. Pray in faith.

Obviously this isn’t (ironically) praying in faith but rather superstition but I’m surprised and saddened at how they keep stacking up. People are actually falling for this thing. There are even versions that threaten the reader. (Our Lady will burn you if you ignore this message!) Every church that I go within the city seems to have at least five of these sort of novenas.

There’s also a SSPX 2003 edition magazine in the shelf. It gave an in-depth denouncement of ecumenism as heresy and disgusting sacrilege. Very powerful for someone who’s not aware of SSPX’s canonical status.

How should I address this? I’d like to write a letter to our priest but I’m not sure how to compose it. Or if I should write a letter at all.

Thanks.

These are essentially chain letters. Anyone passing on copies is committing a sin of grave matter. If I find things like that I take the entire supply and throw them in the trash.

 

[Memaw]

I spoke with my parish priest about this today. (Didn’t get to meet him last Sunday.)

He seemed really busy so he just told me that he knew about them and already asked for them to be thrown away (which was pretty weird, considering the piles of wish-granting novenas in the pews). He told me to discard any similar things away.

I didn’t get to mention the SSPX magazine though – would it be considered stealing if I took it, too?

It’s not stealing to remove freely left material, especially potentially harmful ones. God Bless, Memaw

 

[Dorothy]

I spoke with my parish priest about this today. (Didn’t get to meet him last Sunday.)

He seemed really busy so he just told me that he knew about them and already asked for them to be thrown away (which was pretty weird, considering the piles of wish-granting novenas in the pews). He told me to discard any similar things away.

I didn’t get to mention the SSPX magazine though – would it be considered stealing if I took it, too?

It doesn’t seem to me to be stealing to remove something that does not belong in the church, and which has the potential of harming faith.

I just noticed…duplicate advice!

 

[Cavaille-Coll]

Anything which says “never been known to fail,” asks you to leave a certain number of copies, or makes threats if the instructions are not followed is pure superstition and should be thrown in the trash.

 

[jarn98]

A couple years ago, someone left a bunch of these prayer booklets in the church:

catholiccompany.com/catholic-prayers-i15609/

It is actually a very nice quality booklet, over 100 pages with many wonderful prayers, so I grabbed one. A few weeks later, Father said no one is to leave anything without his permission, and mentioned in particular this booklet because it included some Novenas attached to superstition (mostly of the ‘never been known to fail’ variety-see section II in the product description), and he removed them.
It’s a shame the publisher had to include those Novenas in this otherwise lovely booklet. Makes me wonder who would buy them and leave them in the first place? The link says they are $10.00 each (probably less for bulk order), but I felt bad for whoever spent all that money left them-I am sure they thought they were doing a good thing.