Novena for Faithful Citizenship - Day 4

FOURTH DAY

OPENING PRAYER

Come Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of the faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.

READING

Deut 30:15-20

Moses said to the people:

"Today, I have set before you

life and prosperity, death and doom.

If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God,

which I enjoin on you today,

loving him, and walking in his ways,

and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees,

you will live and grow numerous,

and the LORD, your God,

will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.

If, however, you turn away your hearts and will not listen,

but are led astray and adore and serve other gods,

I tell you now that you will certainly perish;

you will not have a long life

on the land that you are crossing the Jordan to enter and occupy.

I call heaven and earth today to witness against you:

I have set before you life and death,

the blessing and the curse.

Choose life, then,

that you and your descendants may live, by loving the LORD, your God,

heeding his voice, and holding fast to him.

For that will mean life for you,

a long life for you to live on the land which the LORD swore

he would give to your fathers Abraham, Isaac and Jacob."

REFLECTION

How do I defend the right to life especially of the unborn and those near death? How am I tempted to turn away from the commandments and not support the right to life of all people? How can I overcome that temptation?

PRAYER

God of life,

may we protect and defend the inviolable sanctity of human life

from the moment of conception until natural death

with strong voices, gentle hands, and loving hearts.

Amen.

NOVENA PRAYER

Immaculate Heart of Mary,
help us to conquer the menace of evil,
which so easily
takes root in the hearts of the people of today,
and whose immeasurable effects
already weigh down upon our modern world
and seem to block the paths toward the future.
From famine and war, deliver us.
From nuclear war, from incalculable self-destruction, from every kind of war, deliver us.
From sins against human life from its very beginning, deliver us.
From hatred and from the demeaning of the dignity of the children of God, deliver us.
From every kind of injustice in the life of society, both national and international, deliver us.
From readiness to trample on the commandments of God, deliver us.
From attempts to stifle in human hearts the very truth of God, deliver us.
From the loss of awareness of good and evil, deliver us.
From sins against the Holy Spirit, deliver us.
Accept, O Mother of Christ,
this cry laden with the sufferings of all individual human beings,
laden with the sufferings of whole societies.
Help us with the power of the Holy Spirit conquer all sin:
individual sin and the "sin of the world,"
sin in all its manifestations.
Let there be revealed once more in the history of the world
the infinite saving power of the redemption:
the power of merciful love.
May it put a stop to evil.
May it transform consciences.
May your Immaculate Heart reveal for all the light of hope. Amen.