St Francis Xavier Novena 4th - 12th March

The Novena of Grace to St Francis Xavier is prayed every year from 4 to 12 March. It has been kept at St Francis Xavier Church, Gardiner Street, Dublin, since 1832, and it is prayed in Jesuit churches and parishes around the world in the same nine days.

Why these nine days

The novena grew out of the recovery of Fr. Marcello Mastrilli, SJ, in the seventeenth century. Gravely injured and close to death, he had a vision of St Francis Xavier and vowed to go to the missions in Japan. He recovered, and the promise attached to the vision — that those who pray for nine consecutive days through the intercession of Xavier will receive the grace they need — became the devotion now known as the Novena of Grace. It is prayed in March rather than on Xavier's December feast because 12 March is the anniversary of his canonisation in 1622.

Times of the daily Mass and sermon

Each day of the novena there are three celebrations, with a sermon, music, reflection and the novena prayer, and the intentions of everyone making the novena are prayed for together:

11:00 GMT

13:00 GMT

19:30 GMT (18:00 on Saturday evening)

Praying it from home

Every celebration is streamed on the church webcam and stays available on playback, so you can join a Mass live or watch a later time of day whenever it suits you. If you begin after 4 March you can still make the full nine days, and you can catch up on the days you have missed through the recordings.

Watch the novena Mass live or on playback:

https://mcn.live/iframe/f8810bb435b52cdf1d28988ec0cdf1891ca1a328

A new preacher is invited each year to give the sermon at all the novena Masses, taking the life and contribution of St Francis Xavier as the thread across the nine days. The homilies from the current novena are transcribed day by day on this site, so the whole novena can be read as well as watched.

How to make the novena

Name one intention and keep to it for the nine days. Join the Mass in the church or on the webcam, or pray the novena prayer to St Francis Xavier at home at the same time each day. Pray the ninth day even if nothing seems to have changed — a novena is a way of staying with God about something that matters, not a technique for getting an answer.