Pencil in a Novena
by Monica Pugh | July 18, 2025
I love to sit with my planner and a freshly sharpened Dixon Ticonderoga No. 2 pencil. I plan, count weeks and days, and look ahead a month at a time writing everything in pencil just in case. Those pencils have the best lead and erasers and remind me of happy school days.
We are halfway through our Jubilee Year of Hope focusing on prayer. School is out for summer and the humid days have arrived. Perhaps it is time to pencil in some time for special prayers. But as I look for space on my calendar, penciling in prayer seems vulnerable.
Prayer is vulnerable. Prayer is learning to live every day in what we cannot see. Prayer teaches us to move away from the visible knowing God’s calendar is better than our own. Our lives are moving closer to or farther from God depending on our daily choices. Hopefully, our desire is to move closer to God when times are good and bad. Sometimes, in order to move closer, it helps to make a plan. Attending Mass and studying about God is the first step in being vulnerable to deepen our faith. Planning time for prayer might be the next step in vulnerability and trusting God’s will for our lives. Sometimes I pencil in a novena.
Novenas are prayers designed for calendars. Novena comes from the Latin word “novem” meaning nine. It is reflective of the nine days between the Feast of the Ascension and Pentecost where the disciples and Mary gathered in prayer waiting. These nine days of their prayers are considered the first novena. Today the list of novenas is extensive and could easily fill our calendar for a length of nine days, weeks or months.
The Surrender Novena holds a special place in my heart.
The Surrender Novena was given to Servant of God Father Dolindo Ruotolo (1882-1970) who was a contemporary of St. Pio of Pietrelcina, more commonly known as Padre Pio. Padre Pio had a devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The Surrender Novena was given to Father Dolindo by Jesus. It is often prayed during times of difficulty as a way to seek peace in God’s will.
I prayed my first Surrender Novena in September 2020 at the suggestion of a faithful friend who offered to lead me in prayer each morning by phone call. We prayed the daily prayers and repeated 10 times “Oh Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything” in unison for nine days. God answered by bringing me a deep abiding peace even though I could not see what was to come. Vulnerability in prayer showed me my strength not my fragility.
Search for novenas or locate one on your favorite app, pencil it in on your calendar and make a plan. Perhaps ask a friend or spouse to participate for accountability. We are free to plan and hope we plan in God’s will in all areas of our lives. Proverbs 19:21 says, “Many are the plans in the mind of a man, but it is the purpose of the Lord that will stand.”
In prayer we can know our strength through our surrender.