Are Novenas Just...Superstitions?

Catholics aren't witches

I came of age in the peak of the witchey-teen-girl era.

It was post-Satanic panic (I was born in ‘91) and ouija boards were an absolute necessity at sleepovers. So were tarot cards and fortune tellers we made out of pages torn from magazines. I knew one girl¹ who claimed she was a Wiccan; we acted in a few children’s theater plays together. She wore a lot of eye liner. She would teach us “spells” backstage and claimed the right mixture of sodas was actually a magic potion that would make boys fall madly in love with us. She drew magical signs on her arms with sharpie before the stage manager angrily made her scrub it off. I thought she was the coolest person I’d ever met.

This was, to the dismay of many puritans, not because of Harry Potter but because we were seeking small forms of power in a world where 11-year-old girls have very little. Looking back, it’s kind of funny how ridiculous we were being. But it’s also not funny at all. Catholics get a weird rap for praying in front of femurs and having licensed exorcists and celebrating the seasons and sprinkling holy water around our houses but we do not mess with the actual Occult. The line between the two (spirituality and Occult) can feel thin, but it’s actually firm.

I’ve been struck lately by how superstitious some of us (it’s me; hi, I’m the problem it’s me) can become about prayer if we’re not careful.

There was a time in my life where I believed novenas could solve anything in the world. Novenas, if you’re unfamiliar, are (usually) 9- or 54-day prayer recitations for specific purposes. For instance, there’s the St. Anne novena, which is a specific prayer for finding a spouse. There’s the St. Andrew novena, a set of prayers leading up to Christmas that you say fifteen times a day. There’s the Undoer of Knots novena, which you’re supposed to bring your most difficult problems to.

I loved a novena. My love for the saints has always been one of the strongest parts of my Catholicism, and I picture myself as that little kid just going “Mom? Mom? Mom?”

However, this past year, I was asked to do a novena for an intention for a friend. This is a very good, holy friend who is much closer to sainthood than I. I agreed, but every time I would sit down to do the prayer, I felt this weird curdling in my stomach. Are we, like, attempting an incantation? I kinda-sorta wondered. It felt like I was being told to say these specific words, in this specific order, and I would get this specific outcome. Like it was a cheat code to achieving the “best” possible outcome. Almost like the shooka-shooka-shooka magic we would whisper backstage, hoping the cool Wiccan girl would be our friend.