This is for Catholics...others please, if it is not for you, ignore or delete!
We have started the Grace Novena yesterday, in Sacred Heart Wimbledon, London:- Throughout the World in 2006, Jesuits and friends are celebrating anniversaries connected to three of the founding companions of the Society of Jesus. St Ignatius Loyola died on 31 July 1556, while St. Francis Xavier and blessed Peter Favre were both born in 1506. We recall their lives in this booklet. But in Britain, 2006 also marks the 400th anniversary of the martyrdom of four Jesuits after the Gunpowder plot of 1605; st Nicholas Owen, Blessed Ralph Ashley, Blessed Edward Oldcorne and Fr Henry Garnet. By reflecting on the lives and deaths of these Companions of Jesus and by uniting in prayer this Jubilee year, we seek to see God more fully in all things and to live our lives working for the greater glory of God. Ad Maiorem Dei Gloriam. Francis Xavier and Ignatius Loyola were both canonised in 1622. We are celebrating the 500th birth anniversary of St Francis Xavier 7th April 1506 and the 450th death anniversary of Ignatius Loyola, 1556 The Novena will end on 12th March 2006. Here is the Novena Prayer. NOVENA PRAYER. Lord god, our father, we honour the memory of the Apostle of the East, St Francis Xavier. The remembrance of the favours with which you blessed him during life and his glory after death, fill us with joy and we unite with him in offering to you our sincere tribute of thanksgiving and of grace. We ask you to grant us, through his powerful intercession, the inestimable blessings of living and dying in the state of grace. We also ask you to grant us the favours we seek in this Novena. ( Pause for personal petitions) But if what we ask, is not for the glory of God and the good of our souls, grant us, we pray, what is more conducive to both. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen. -- TUMCHER AXIRVAD ASSUM; DEV BOREM KORUM. Gabe Menezes. London, England
