NOVENA PRAYER TO ST PHILOMENA

TO BE SAID EACH DAY FROM 2 AUGUST to 10 AUGUST

O Glorious Virgin and Martyr, beloved of God, St Philomena!  I rejoice with thee in the power which God gave thee for the glory of His Name, for the edification His Church, and to reward the merits of thy life and death.  I rejoice to see thee so great, so pure, so generous, so faithful to Jesus Christ, and to His Gospel, and so splendidly rewarded in Heaven, and on earth.  Attracted by thy example to the practice of solid virtue full of hope at the sight of thy recompense granted to thy merits, I resolve to follow thee in avoiding all evil and in fully obeying what God commands.  Help me, O great Saint by thy powerful intercession.  Obtain for me particularly, a purity inviolable forever, a strength of soul always invincible in every kind of assault, a generosity which denies no sacrifice to God, and a love as strong as death for the Faith of Jesus Christ, for the Holy Roman Church and for Our Holy Father, the Father of all the Faithful, the Shepherd of shepherds and of their flocks, the Vicar of Jesus Christ over all the world.

With all the fervour of my soul, I implore these graces from thee, and, in addition, I ask these other benefits from thee with equal confidence in obtaining them through thy powerful intercession:  (here ask for your request).

Surely that God so good for Whom thou didst give thy blood and thy life that God so good Who is so generous to thee and through thy meditation, so generous with gifts and favours to us, that God so good Who has loved me even unto dying for me, even unto giving me Himself under the Eucharistic appearances, surely He will never be deaf to thy prayers, nor to my appeals, unless it be that He Himself is in some different way seeking to do me good. Full of confidence, I place all my trust in Him and in thee.   Amen.