St. Peter’s Basilica contains an icon of the Virgin Mary titled “Mater Ecclesiae,” which means “Mother of the Church.” / Credit: Daniel Ibañez/CNA
National Catholic Register, Sep 5, 2024 / 14:40 pm (CNA).
When you are in need of an answer to prayer but time doesn’t permit a multi-day petition, you may want to follow the example of St. Teresa of Calcutta — whose feast day is today, Sept. 5 — who turned to the Virgin Mary and prayed her “Flying Novena.”
Monsignor Leo Maasburg, her friend and spiritual adviser, explains in his book “Mother Teresa of Calcutta: A Personal Portrait” that it was “Mother Teresa’s spiritual rapid-fire weapon. It consisted of 10 Memorares — not nine, as you might expect from the word ‘novena.’ Novenas lasting nine days were quite common among the Congregation of the Missionaries of Charity. But given the host of problems that were brought to Mother Teresa’s attention, not to mention the pace at which she traveled, it was often just not possible to allow nine days for an answer from Celestial Management. And so she invented the ‘Quick Novena.’”
Maasburg calls it by this name rather than the “Flying Novena,” which her Missionaries of Charity continue to use and pray.
Here are the words of the centuries-old Memorare:
“Remember, O most gracious Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession was left unaided. Inspired with this confidence, I fly unto you, O Virgin of virgins, my Mother. To you I come, before you I stand, sinful and sorrowful. O Mother of the Word incarnate, despise not my petitions, but in your clemency hear and answer me. Amen.”
Maasburg writes that Mother Teresa said this novena all the time — “for petitions for the cure of a sick child, before important discussions, or when passports went missing to request heavenly aid when the fuel supply was running short on a nighttime mission and the destination was still far away in the darkness. The Quick Novena had one thing in common with nine-day and even nine-month novenas: confident pleading for heavenly assistance, as the apostles did for nine days in the upper room ‘with Mary, the mother of Jesus, and the women’ (Acts 1:14) while waiting for the promised help from the Holy Spirit.”
Maasburg goes on to explain why Mother Teresa always prayed 10 Memorares. “She took the collaboration of heaven so much for granted that she always added a 10th Memorare immediately, in thanksgiving for the favor received.”
Typical quick answer
Father Brian Kolodiejchuk of the Missionaries of Charity, who served as the postulator of the cause for Mother Teresa’s canonization, shared an example of what happened when Mother Teresa prayed this 10-day novena as the need arose or a difficulty presented itself.
He quotes Mother herself describing one of many instances: “In Rome during the Holy Year (1984), the Holy Father was going to celebrate Mass in the open, and crowds of people were gathered. It was pouring rain, so I told the sisters, ‘Let us say a flying novena of nine Memorares to Our Lady in thanksgiving for beautiful weather.’ As we said two Memorares, it started to pour more rain. We said the third … sixth … seventh … and at the eighth one, all the umbrellas were closing, and when we finished the ninth one, we found all the umbrellas were closed.”
Novena opens Vatican locks
Maasburg also recounts in his book the time he drove Mother Teresa and one of her sisters to the Vatican for Pope John Paul II’s private morning Mass. Arriving very early while all was still locked up, Maasburg describes how together they prayed the entire rosary and novena of Memorares while waiting in the car.
“No sooner had we finished the Quick Novena than the Swiss guardsman knocked on the steamed-up windshield and said, ‘Mother Teresa, it’s time.’ Mother Teresa and the sister got out.”
Maasburg said he’d wait in the car for her, but she turned around and called, “Quick, Father, you come with us!”
Mother Teresa was already on her way to the elevator; she swept aside the timid protest of the Swiss guardsman with a charming “Father is with us!” and a grateful twinkle of her eyes.
“The rules were unequivocal: Only those who were on the list of announced guests could enter. And only the names of Mother Teresa and one other sister were on that list. … Even in the company of a saint I would not get past the elevator attendant — much less the civil police in front of the entrance to the Holy Father’s apartment,” Maasburg recalled.
“Mother assured the hesitant elevator attendant … ‘We can start now. Father is with us’ … I had already tried again and again to explain to Mother Teresa in the elevator that it is not only unusual but absolutely impossible to make your way into the pope’s quarters unannounced. But even my resistance was useless…”
Two tall policemen in civilian clothes stood at the door to the papal apartments.
“The older of the two policemen greeted the foundress of a religious order courteously: ‘Mother Teresa, good morning! Please come this way. The padre is not announced. He cannot come in.’ He stepped aside for Mother Teresa, whereas I had stopped walking,” Maasburg continued. “She gestured to me, however, that I should keep going, and explained to the policeman, ‘Father is with us.’”
“‘… Mother, your padre has no permission; therefore he cannot come with you.’”
“… She stood there calmly and asked the policeman in a patient tone of voice, ‘And who can give the priest permission?’” Maasburg recounted.
“The good man was obviously not prepared for this question. With a helpless shrug of his shoulder he said, ‘Well, maybe the pope himself. Or Monsignor [Stanisław] Dziwisz….’”
“’Good, then wait here!’ was the prompt reply. And Mother Teresa was already … heading for the papal chambers. ’I will go and ask the Holy Father!’”
“A short pause, then Italian-Vatican common sense prevailed and Mother Teresa had won. ‘Then the padre had better just go with you!’”
“Turning to me, he said, ‘Go. Go now!’” Maasburg said.
Not only did Maasburg get to the Mass, but Mother Teresa told Dziwisz, the pope’s private secretary, later the archbishop of Krakow and a cardinal, that the priest with her would celebrate the Mass with the Holy Father. And Maasburg did. (Read all the details here.)
Impossible becomes possible
Mother Teresa “definitely inspired the same devotion in her sisters, but also in others,” Kolodiejchuk affirmed.
Father Louis Merosne, the pastor at St. Anne’s Cathedral in Anse-à-Veau, Haiti, shared his own amazing experience with the Flying Novena.
Once he had planned to join the Missionaries of Charity priests, had been accepted, and spent two years with them in Mexico before he said God made it clear he was to serve in Haiti instead. Active with youth and young adult conferences, in 2008 he was going to World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia. On his return he was to have a one-day stop in Boston, then catch a flight to the Netherlands, where he was to speak at a conference.
“I went to the consulate in Boston to apply for their visa,” he said. “They told me I would have to leave my passport in order to put the visa on it. I couldn’t because I had to leave for Sydney.” Boston insisted the central office could not process anything until they had his passport. “I told them I’m going to the Netherlands and I had one day in between my two travels. They said, ‘Sorry.’”
Calling from Sydney about the visa, he got a surprise. “They told me, by the way, they don’t do urgent, express applications. They need at least two weeks once they get the passport.” He told them the conference would be over by then.
Returning to Boston, he took an early train to New York City to the main consulate office. He continued: “I went to the office to explain the situation again, but they said, ‘You can leave your passport and pick it up in two weeks. We’re very sorry.’”
This was the day he was to travel to the Netherlands, and he had to get back to Boston and board his booked flight that evening, which would then fly back to New York on the first of two legs to the Netherlands.
“Maybe if I call the airline, they would allow me to get on at New York for the Netherlands flight,” he thought. The airline’s answer? “No, we don’t do that. If you don’t get on your flight in Boston, your entire flight will be cancelled. You cannot get on in New York.”
Still in the consulate, he called the airlines a second time hoping to find a sympathetic listener. But again he was told the airline could not cancel one leg of the flight.
At that point Merosne knew it was time to say a Flying Novena. He said: “‘Only you, Blessed Mother, can help me do this if it is God’s will.’ I said the novena.”
Shortly after he finished, “the representative from the consulate called me over and said, ‘Give me your passport.’ And within minutes I had my visa! And I called the airlines a third time, and this time the lady said, ‘We don’t do this, but we’ll do this once for you. Get on the plane in New York.’”
“Once I said that [Flying] Novena, it was all over for them,” Merosne said with much joy. “That which was impossible for man was quite possible for our Blessed Mother.”
“I am a believer,” he said of the Flying Novena.
About the Flying Novena
Kolodiejchuk noted that Mother Teresa taught: “Get into that habit of calling on her [Mary]. She interceded — at the wedding feast, there was no wine. … She was so sure that he will do what she asks him. … She is mediatrix of all graces. … She is always there with us.”
One of the Missionaries of Charity sisters explained that the Flying Novena wasn’t hard and fast in some ways. For instance, the nine Memorares might be for our Blessed Mother’s help in getting a house, or nine Memorares in thanksgiving for that (rather than one 10th Memorare) because the house was already attained.
The spiritual situation and the time come into account.
She said the sisters use the Flying Novena from the simplest things such as getting out of traffic when they are stuck in it to serious life-and-death things.
The Memorare is so powerful, she said. We are to pray the Memorares with confidence and in thanksgiving knowing Our Lady will grant this.
“The Memorare is a prayer that effectively expressed Mother Teresa’s trust in the power of Mary’s intercession as the mediatrix of all graces,” Kolodiejchuk explained. “It flowed from the love and confidence she had in Mary and was a simple way to present her petitions to her. The speedy response she received inspired her with ever-greater confidence to have recourse to Mary with the words of the Memorare.”
Mother Teresa wanted everybody to learn and use this prayer. “Mother said [to] teach the poor to pray the Memorare. Write it down for them and teach them,” the sister said. Praying it, Our Lady will be gloried and Jesus will be glorified.
There’s always a reason for the Flying Novena.
This article was first published Aug. 30, 2016, by the National Catholic Register, CNA’s sister news partner, and has been adapted by CNA.
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Anybody who’s unhappy with his boss, should quit.
Nathalie, Pope Francis and Archbishop Naumann hcve one “boss” and He is Jesus, the Son of God. They are both by thier calling must teach, defend, and spread the commands and teachings of the Lord Jesus. If one is failing to do so or is causing confusion and disunity, then in brotherly love it should be pointed out.
I couldn’t agree with you more…. One boss-GOD
Richard: We’re talking here of the Church’s polity. Bishops as a College serve and function “with” and “under” the Pope, “cum Petro, sub Petro.” The Archbishop like a few other American prelates (only in America!) who are openly and disloyally critical of the Pope should quit their post or be investigated/visited. They can look at the case of Archbishop Vigano who was mothballed and called back to head office for botching the 2015 U.S. papal visit. To CWR’s good judgment it has not propagated his weird conspiracy theories and unfounded accusations against the Pope in retaliation for having been sidelined in his clericalist careerism.
The Pope is very, very wrong because supporting, promoting, legislating and financing abortion is not a matter of choice of conscience according to Evangelium Vitae.
The Pope is very wrong to say Bidens position is only “incoherent”. Biden’s position is directly opposed to and an attack on Catholic infallible dogma condemning abortion. Biden is a heretic against and infallible dogma condemning abortion in Evangelium Vitae.
Nonsense. It has nothing at all to do with being “happy.” It has EVERYTHING to do with the teaching of the Catholic Church and the pastoral care of the flock. To callously consign someone’s immortal soul to damnation by doing and saying nothing in the face of their support for the murder of innocent children is to compound the evil.
If you endorse the crimes against humanity by Pope Francis who directly promotes undermining the Church’s moral authority to condemn crimes against humanity, then you too support crimes against humanity. And the Pope is no one’s “boss.”
Argument is given by those, and they’re not a paltry number, who despite their opposition to abortion either firmly believe [or harbor doubts of Biden’s, Pelosi’s guilt] Biden and Pelosi may be wrong, but are abiding to a conscience, formulated in such a way that absolves them from sin.
Morality is determined by acts, what we do. If there is some mysterious conscientious proposition by which a man may commit cold blooded murder, kill the innocent man without just cause and be free of grave sin it defies reason. Example. Aristotle taught that the virtues are determined virtuous acts by a reasonable mean. That the mean of fortitude is somewhere between audacity and cowardice. However, Aristotle [Aquinas agrees with Aristotle on the virtues] held that justice, what is right, of all the virtues has no mean [or median]. There are no degrees by which murder is more or less murder. Which indicates there is in us an inherent capacity to apprehend with certitude that certain acts, murder, sexual acts with a child, false witness. Certitude of these acts is realized when major and minor premises are apprehended in one act of knowing. As simple as immediately knowing this act is murder, false witness, rape of a child.
As regards abortion they’re are mitigating dynamics, fear, lack of knowledge ignorance is common among subcultures, extreme duress. The Church recognizes these although despite proponents of mitigation theory [John Paul II warned not to make mitigation a category] that cast doubt of grave sin on all abortions. Biden will say abortion is wrong, and similarly say it’s not. His rationale is we’re unsure when a human being is present in the womb, that Aquinas determined there’s a hiatus between conception and the presence of a soul. Nevertheless, he poses these opinions contrary to what the Church teaches, that human life begins at conception. The argument of ensoulment is frivolous at best and nonsensical at worst, because the notion of soul as understood stems from the Gk definition of anything that is self motivation. A plant was said to have a soul, as well as a grasshopper. We know with certitude that human life begins with conception. It really is not up to us to determine when that human life has rights in recognition that it is a human life, since that determination belongs to the Creator. It’s right to life starts with its life at the moment of conception.
Biden rejects what the Church teaches which places him in the heretic category. Pelosi argues on the basis of hardship, undue burden [some canonists consider all pregnancy and birth an undue burden].
Archbishop Naumann [it’s obvious why Naumann, Aquila, Cordileone are not cardinals] is taking the stand of reason that not all abortions are hardship cases to the degree that the woman who aborts might be absolved from grave sin. That the vast majority of abortions are frivolously decided, often for cosmetic reason or maintaining a lifestyle. The monumental number of abortions hang over the head of Biden [and] Pelosi like the Sword of Damocles.
En effet. Francis in defense of Biden argues the case he makes in Amoris on conscience that inherently grave sin like murder of the innocent is not murder when we determine that it’s not.
Dear pastor and brother in Christ:
Blessings and thanks. You strive to help Biden and Pelosi come to the knowledge of truth and peace with God. If they are unwilling to accept the teaching of the Catholic Church, what kinship do they have then? You are well acquainted with the following verses and yet, if someone struggles with their conscience, God always guides us to paths of righteousness. God will forgive us of all sins if we ask Him in Jesus name!
Genesis 9:5-6 And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning: from every beast I will require it and from man. From his fellow man I will require a reckoning for the life of man. “Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed, for God made man in his own image.
Psalm 139:13-16 For you formed my inward parts; you knitted me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well. My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed substance; in your book were written, every one of them, the days that were formed for me, when as yet there was none of them.
Leviticus 24:17 “Whoever takes a human life shall surely be put to death.
Proverbs 24:11-12 Rescue those who are being taken away to death; hold back those who are stumbling to the slaughter. If you say, “Behold, we did not know this,” does not he who weighs the heart perceive it? Does not he who keeps watch over your soul know it, and will he not repay man according to his work?
Your fellow servant in Christ,
Brian
May our Lord Jesus who knows all hearts deliver His children from the spirit of Error in this evil days.
Plaudits to a bishop who has the courage to speak the truth to power. Would that we had a Church today where it wouldn’t be necessary to even single a bishop out for such courage.
How these bishops cover for their abusive “pope”!
Their excuses for Bergoglio are tragic.
They are fools.
“I wasn’t aware of that statement by the Holy Father and I do think that’s helpful,” Naumann told CNA. “It’s very helpful because I think that’s exactly true, that his position is incoherent with Catholic teaching. So I’m grateful for that clarification by the Holy Father.”
It is so sad that you, Archbishop, was not aware of that statement made by Pope Francis. That was an important statement that was published in many good Catholic sites. And, by the way, it was not offered as a clarification. That is Church teaching. Yes, people who are not in communion with the Church should not receive communion. Hey Archbishop, Pope Francis would have received Pelosi and others because she is an American official. Even us laypeople know that.
COREECTION: What you write should read, “Even WE laypeople know that.” You see, “we” is in the subjective case and should be used for the subject of a sentence. However “us” is in the objective case, and you’ve used it wrongly.
Parenthetically, you do realize that you castigate some here for admonishing Pontiff Francis while you have no problem admonishing Bishop Naumann. Both men are bishops, you know. Aren’t you a bit inconsistent? Or perhaps, to quote Pontiff Francis, aren’t you being “incoherent.”
Mal, the nature of evil is to combine itself with the good.
It’s one thing to receive an American official, your point, but it’s another to combine such a courtesy with distribution and reception of the Eucharist. But, you are correct that Pope Francis’ statement “was not offered as a clarification.” It clarified nothing. Like stupidity, mere incoherence (as for Biden) is likely more of a hall pass than it is a sin. A new category, while moral theology remains about good and evil.
How can it clarify something, Peter, when it was not meant to clarify anything. It was a straightforward statement that reflects Church teaching. Secondly, where did you get the idea that Pope Francis combined his reception of Pelosi, mthe American official, with an invitation to receive Holy communion. That is a fabrication.
Who said “invitation?”
My comment is “combine,” a combination that coherent popes or pastors would have acted to prevent. The issue is inaction. As for “Church teaching,” it might be that such teaching is above the level of whether something is incoherent or not. There’s even something in there about inaction or “sins of omission.” Pay attention.
It is so sad that you, Mal, are not aware that the statement made by Pope Francis is NOT Church teaching. If it were, Francis would have said that Biden’s position is a REPUDIATION of Catholic teaching and a spitting in the face of God, and not use a wimpy word like incoherent, a CONTRADICTION so grievance, so obvious a crime against humanity, as to warrant his excommunication, and he would have said it last fall when Francis called him “a good Catholic,” and it would have been a reoccurring theme for nine years that any Catholic in high office is obligated to oppose the principalities of mass murder and not serve as an instrumentality. Even laypeople who are not involved in personality cults know this.
Edward, you are the last person I would ask about the teachings of the Catholic Church.
Again, maybe the controversy isn’t even about “the teachings of the Catholic Church,” but rather about affirming the teachings, while then ALSO (are you listening?) creating a surrounding climate of ambiguity within which these teachings can be pastorally or synodally set aside. The issue is the “smoke(stacks) of Satan” and this new kind of “climate change”!
Explaining this simple observation incisively to some readers is like trying to kill a deep-sea sponge with a needle, but let this internet discourse continue, because it does serve to clarify.
The archbishop just had knee surgery this week. So cut him some slack.
The Church teaches now and always has that life begins at the instant of conception and lasts until natural death. This is not difficult to understand.
The Church teaches now and always has that abortion is FORBIDDEN and always will be, in other words it is a mortal sin. THIS is not difficult to understand.
So called ‘catholic’ politicians going all the way back to Kerry and Kennedy – remember Kennedy’s anti-Bork rant about “backyard abortions’ during the Senate hearings as far back as the 80s – have been openly defying for decades the very tenets of the faith they say they follow regarding this issue. This has been going on so long that it has, sadly, become the norm.
Given this, Archbishop Naumann’s statement, while welcome, is a bit silly.
“Sad” continues to well describe my response. However, Mrs. Pelosi is also a cause of sorrow, and I intentionally use her matrimonial title as that should be her primary vocation. I cannot envision a more pastoral figure—with her—than Archbishop Cordileone who provided her soul with thousands of Rosaries and white roses after years of petitioning her conscience to realize the error of her thinking and disconnect in her actions. It was appallingly condescending to suggest that Archbishop Cordileone’s ultimate declaration was not consequentially pastoral, as well.
Then, how did Mrs. Pelosi respond to the Pope’s smiling encounter—she rebelliously rebuked him even recently, thrusting the same bitter uline about giving birth to five children (something the Pope could not understand). Incredibly, she remains blind to the enormous blessings God gave or permitted her,throwing the greatest possible one, co-creation, back in His Holy Face. (Now, granted even devout Catholic Moms, pregnant again, might look heaven bound and cry, really?, but they do not publicly resent this gift and use its perceived “burden” to justify tens of millions of abortions—up to birth, no less.)
Yet, returning to Pope Francis, I also pray he emphasizes the need to protect the great pastoral work of crisis pregnancy centers—which neither Pelosi nor Biden have done—and most importantly speak of the right of persons in the womb to be pastorally delivered into Baptism and even their First Communion.
Over 70 years of Catholic upbringing and teaching for both Biden and Pelosi and look what you get! That church needs to stop relying on human traditions and false teaching/interpreting scriptures to fit their narrative. It’s no wonder God has turned his back on this church.
Most of the time the fault lies with the individual, and NOT the church. I seem to recall Martin Luther disposing of 7 Books of the bible because they didnt fit his preferred theological narrative. The same books which had been accepted by Christians for 1500 years to that point. I would suggest that moves into “false teaching”. Or at the very least, the twisting of scripture. I see no evidence God has abandoned the Catholic Church. Although many are unhappy with Frances as its head.
We need another St. Ambrose in the Church today to set the record straight on what the Church teaches, and whips everyone into shape.
Even though the grammar is atrocious (i.e., “someone”, “that person”, “they”), the Archbishop does a good job of identifying hypocrisy when he sees it:
“‘However, it is not pastoral to tell someone they are a good Catholic and can receive Communion as a matter of course, when that person has committed a grave evil,’ he continued. ‘The fact that the pope received Pelosi was politically exploited. In doing so, Francis is doing exactly what he warns others not to do.'”
I think Abp. Naumann is right that Pope Francis doesn’t understand America, as he doesn’t understand the American Church. Yet he presumes to wade in. Whose job is it to enlighten him? Or is he as closed to insight as Pelosi and Biden seem/pretend to be?
The collective Bishops authority to teach about the Eucharist at this point is the same as a known adulterer teaching about fidelity in a marriage.
After approximately two years of starving their children telling us Walmart was more essential than Jesus Christ, trying to teach the faithful about the importance of the Eucharist just shows how collectively out of touch they are.
We shouldn’t expect anything out of them at this point as they will collectively cave again for the next “emergency” with a 99% survival rate.
Hate the sin not the sinner
“I think the Pope doesn’t understand the U.S., just as he doesn’t understand the Church in the U.S..”
Kansas’ vote to protect abortion rights ironically shows that Archbishop Naumann is the one who doesn’t really understand the U.S..