Novena to the Child Jesus (16th–24th of each month)
Feast: 25th of each month; Christmas
When to pray: Begin on the 16th of any month and finish on the 24th, or pray it from 16 to 24 Dec before Christmas. A novena is prayed on nine consecutive days.
The five offerings are said on each of the nine days, from the 16th to the 24th of the month.
Prayer for each day
Novena to be begun on the 16th day of the month.
First Offering. Eternal Father, I offer to Thy honour and glory, and for my own salvation, and for the salvation of all the world, the mystery of the Birth of our Divine Saviour.
Gloria.
Second Offering. Eternal Father, I offer to Thy honour and glory, and for my eternal salvation, the sufferings of the most holy Virgin and of St. Joseph in that long and weary journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem; I offer Thee their pain in finding no place wherein to shelter themselves, when the Saviour of the world was to be born.
Gloria.
Third Offering. Eternal Father, I offer to Thy honour and glory, and for my eternal salvation, the stable where Jesus was born, the hard straw which served him for a bed, the cold He suffered, the swaddling-clothes which bound Him, the tears He shed, and His tender infant cries.
Gloria.
Fourth Offering. Eternal Father, I offer to Thy honour and glory, and for my eternal salvation, the pain which the holy Child Jesus felt in His tender infant body when He submitted it to the keen knife of circumcision; I offer Thee that Precious Blood which then first He shed for the salvation of the whole race of man.
Gloria.
Fifth Offering. Eternal Father, I offer to Thy honour and glory, and for my eternal salvation, the humility, mortification, patience, charity, and all the virtues of the Child Jesus; I thank Thee, and I love Thee, and I bless Thee without end, for this ineffable mystery of the Incarnation of the Divine Word.
Gloria.
V. The Word was made flesh.
R. And dwelt amongst us.
Let us pray.
O God, whose only-begotten Son was made manifest to us in the substance of our flesh; grant, we beseech Thee, that through Him our souls may be inwardly renewed, whom our eyes have seen externally like unto ourselves. Who liveth and reigneth with Thee for ever and ever. Amen.
Praying it over nine days
As in the printed source, the same prayers are said on each of the nine days.
Mark your days:
The prayers named above, in full
Glory Be
Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.
Latin
V. Verbum caro factum est.
R. Et habitavit in nobis.
Oremus.
Deus, cujus Unigenitus in substantia nostræ carnis apparuit; præsta, quæsumus, ut per eum, quem similem nobis foris agnovimus, intus reformari mereamur. Qui tecum vivit et regnat in saecula saeculorum. Amen.
Scripture
Douay-Rheims numbering (modern in brackets): John 1:14. Scripture index
Source
Traditional text, checked word for word against the printed source: The Raccolta, tr. Ambrose St John (1880), pp. 68–70. Public domain. How we check sources