Novena To Saint John Gualbert (Founder of the Vallombrosian Benedictines)

Repeat the following Novena prayers every day for 9 consecutive days.

May the intercession of the Blessed Abbot John,
commend us, we beseech You, O Lord,
so that what we do not deserve by any merits of ours
we may obtain by his patronage.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Amen.

Almighty and ever-living God,
source of peace and lover of concord,
to know Thee is to live, to serve Thee is to reign;
establish us in Thy love,
that by the example of the blessed abbot John Gualbert,
we may render good for evil and blessings for curses,
and so obtain from Thee both pardon and peace.

Amen.
 

Almighty and ever-living God,
source of true peace and lover of concord,
to know you is true life,
to serve you is perfect freedom.
Establish us in our love for you
that by the example of blessed John, your abbot,
we may render good for evil
and blessings instead of curses
and so find in you pardon and peace.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

O true disciple of the New Law,
who didst know how to spare an enemy
for the love of the Holy Cross!
teach us to practise, as thou didst,
the lessons conveyed by the instrument of our salvation,
which will then become to us, as to thee,
a weapon ever victorious over the powers of hell.
Could we look upon the Cross,
and then refuse to forgive our brother an injury,
when God Himself not only forgets our heinous offences
against His Sovereign Majesty,
but even died upon the Tree to expiate them?
The most generous pardon a creature can grant
is but a feeble shadow of the pardon
we daily obtain from our Father in heaven.
Still, the Gospel which the Church sings in thy honour,
may well teach us that the love of our enemies
is the nearest resemblance we can have to our heavenly Father,
and the sign that we are truly His children.

Thou hadst, O John, this grand trait of resemblance.
He who in virtue of His eternal generation
is the true Son of God by nature,
recognised in thee the mark of nobility
which made thee His brother.
When He bowed His sacred Head to thee,
He saluted in thee the character of a child of God,
which thou hadst just so beautifully maintained:
a title a thousand times more glorious
than those of thy noble ancestry.
What a powerful germ was the Holy Ghost
planting at that moment in thy heart!
And how richly does God recompense a single generous act!
Thy sanctification, the glorious share
thou didst take in the Church's victory,
the fecundity whereby thou livest still
in the Order sprung from thee:
all these choice graces for thy own soul
and for so many others,
hung upon that critical moment.
Fate, or the Justice of God,
as thy contemporaries would have said,
had brought thy enemy within thy power:
how wouldst thou treat him?
He was deserving of death;
and in those days every man was his own avenger.
Hadst thou then inflicted due punishment upon him,
thy reputation would have rather increased than diminished.
Thou wouldst have obtained the esteem of thy comrades;
but the only glory which is of any worth before God,
indeed the only glory
which lasts long even in the sight of men,
would never have been thine.
Who would have known thee at the present day?
Who would have felt the admiration and gratitude
with which thy very name now inspires the children of the Church?

The Son of God,
seeing that thy dispositions were conformable
to those of His Sacred Heart,
filled thee with His own jealous love of the holy City
for whose redemption He shed His Blood.
O thou that wert zealous for the beauty of the Bride,
watch over her still; deliver her from hirelings
who would fain receive from men
the right of holding the place of the Bridegroom.
In our days venality is less to be feared than compromise.
Simony would take another form;
there is not so much danger of bribery,
as of fawning, paying homage, making advances,
entering into implicit contracts;
all which proceedings are as contrary to the holy Canons,
as are pecuniary transactions.
And after all, is the evil any the less for taking a milder form,
if it enables princes to bind the Church
again in fetters such as thou didst labour to break?
Suffer not, O John Gualbert, such a misfortune,
which would be the forerunner of terrible disasters.
Continue to support with thy powerful arm
the common Mother of men.
Save thy fatherland a second time,
even in spite of itself.
Protect, in these sad times,
the Order of which thou art the glory and the father;
give it strength to outlive the confiscations
and the cruelties it is suffering from that same Italy
which once hailed thee as its deliverer.
Obtain for Christians of every condition
the courage required for the warfare
in which all are bound to engage.

Amen.

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Saint John Gualbert,
Pray for us.

Saint John Gualbert,
Pray for us.

Saint John Gualbert,
Pray for us.