THE annual Clonard Novena, held in honour of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, returns this week.
The special nine days of prayers and petitions sees thousands attend the Falls monastery every year for the festival of faith, bringing together the faithful from far and wide.
Clonard Novena will begin on Wednesday and run until the 22nd. The theme of this year’s Novena is 'Towards a New Vision of Church'.
“The theme of the Novena this year is towards a new vision of Church," said Fr Peter Burns. "We’re trying to reflect on what the Church of the future will look like. We will have a different aspect of it each day during the nine days.
“There are people who for different reasons have drifted away or who feel on the outside of the Church, and we must try and find ways of reaching those people and communicating to them that they are always welcome.
“There are people who come to the Novena who don’t come to the church otherwise. We do have a very significant number of people who are open to the possibility of coming back beyond the Novena.”
2022 saw the return of the first in-person Novena in Clonard since 2019. During the pandemic the Novena took place online.
“There are just six sessions again this year. For the two years over Covid we didn’t have any in-person Novena, we had to have it online. Last year, we had the in-church Novena for the first time in three years, but we decided to reduce the number of sessions from ten to six.
“On the Saturday, there will be a Special Blessing of the Sick at all masses and on Sunday we are going to have a Blessing of Children at all the masses. On Sunday evening, a youth session with Mass will take place at 8pm.”
Inter-Church Day will take place on Monday 19th June.
Clonard Solemn Novena sessions between Monday to Saturday are 6:45am, 9:30am, 11:30am, 4:00pm, 6:00pm, 8:00pm and on Sunday there is an extra session: 6:45am, 9:30am, 11:30am, 1:00pm, 4:00pm, 6:00pm, 8:00pm.
