Novena to St. Barbara
(One of the Fourteen Holy Helpers)

PREPARATORY PRAYER

Almighty and eternal God! With lively faith and reverently worshipping Your Divine Majesty, I prostrate myself before You and invoke with filial trust Your supreme generosity and mercy. Illuminate the darkness of my intellect with a ray of Your Heavenly light and inflame my heart with the fire of Your Divine Love, that I may contemplate the great virtues and merits of the Saint in whose honor I make this novena, and following their example imitate, as they did, the life of Your Divine Son.

Moreover, I beseech You to graciously grant me, through the merits and intercession of this powerful Helper, the petition which through them I humbly place before You, devoutly saying, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in Heaven."

Vouchsafe graciously to hear it, if it is to Your greater glory and the salvation of my soul. Amen.

PRAYER IN HONOR OF ST. BARBARA

O God, Who adorned Your holy virgin and martyr Barbara with extraordinary fortitude in the confession of the Faith, and consoled her during the most painful torments, grant us through her intercession perseverance in the living of our Catholic Faith, and the grace of being fortified before our end with the Holy Sacraments, and of a happy death. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

INVOCATION OF ST. BARBARA

Intrepid virgin and martyr, St. Barbara, through your intercession come to my aid in all needs of my soul. Obtain for me the grace to be preserved from a sudden and unprovided death. Assist me in my final hour of death. Then, O powerful patroness of the dying, come to my aid! Repel from me all the assaults and temptations of the evil one, and obtain for me the grace to receive before death the Holy Sacraments, that I may breathe forth my soul confirmed in faith, hope, and charity, and be worthy to enter eternal glory. Amen.

St. Barbara, at my last end
Obtain for me the Sacrament;
Assist one in that direst need
When I my God and Judge must meet:
That robed in sanctifying grace
My soul may stand before His face.

PRAYER

My Lord and my God! I offer up to You my petition in union with the bitter passion and death of Jesus Christ, Your Son, together with the merits of His Immaculate and Blessed Mother, Mary ever Virgin, and of all the Saints, particularly with those of the Holy Helper, St. Barbara, in whose honor I make this novena. Look down upon me, merciful Lord! Grant me Your Grace and Your Love, and graciously hear my prayer. Amen.