Day Five Novena Invoking Our Lady and St. Gianna Molla 

Blessed are the Merciful

Reflection

St. Gianna is considered the Model of Motherhood and is a particular source of inspiration and strength to spouses and parents who are called to make heroic sacrifices in fidelity to their vocation in life. A witness in our era to real love and mercy, she once remarked, "Look at the mothers who truly love their children: how many sacrifices they make for them. They are ready for everything, even to give their own blood so that their babies grow up good, healthy and strong".

“‘Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy.’ St. Augustine reminds us here of the truth that we are beggars at God’s door and someone is begging from us. He entreats us to remember that ‘as you treat your beggar, so will God treat his.’”

- “St. Augustine On the Beatitudes,” by Steven Jonathan Rummelsburg

Intention

Let us ask St. Gianna to help bolster our resolve
to practice the Beatitudes in our daily lives.

Novena Prayer to St. Gianna

(Composed by His Eminence, Raymond Leo Cardinal Burke)

Saint Gianna, heroically Christlike wife, mother and physician, I ask the help of your prayers, as I strive to follow your holy example in my physical and spiritual trials.

Help me, by your prayers, to recognize the suffering of the Cross as the way to pure and selfless love of God and my neighbor. May your practice of medicine with priestly care of both body and soul inspire physicians to see the Face of the suffering Christ in their patients.

May your loving acceptance of illness and death help patients to know and do God's will in all things, uniting their sufferings to the Passion and Death of Christ for the salvation of the world.

Saint Gianna, pray for us always that we may have a heart, meek and courageous, like the Heart of Jesus, in Whom we find our healing and strength.

We ask this through Christ Our Lord. AMEN

Invoking the Aid of Our Lady

Our Mother and Lady, dear Virgin of Montserrat! At your feet we kneel this day to offer you our prayers, because at the foot of the cross you consented to be our mother and from that hour you are the Mother of all men, shelter of sinners and our brave mediator. We cry to you for help, for we know you will never forsake any of your children who are in distress. Please come to our aid quickly! (Mention your intentions now and especially that many graces be bestowed upon Cardinal Burke.)

Most tender Mother, in all undertakings throughout my life, be with me. AMEN

Our Lady of Good Counsel, pray for us!

St. Gianna Beretta Molla,
pray for us!