Revised St. Charles and St. Martin Novenas, Day 2

[Left to right] St. Charles Borromeo, by Luca Giordano; St. Martin de Porres, Giles Priere, 1990

Two great men each died on November 3. Charles Borromeo passed away on that day in 1594, and exactly 45 years later, on a different continent, Martin de Porres died in 1639. Their lives overlapped by 15 years, but they never met; most likely neither one ever heard of the other. You can find the prayers for the first day here. God’s sense of time is as different from ours as his ways are not our ways. Don’t worry about beginning a day “late” or if you need to double up the prayers on any given day. God isn’t standing over us with a calendar, ready to scold us if we miss a day. He loves it when we pray. Period. Scroll further down to find today’s novena prayers.

From the founding of Revolution of Tenderness, a 501(c)3 nonprofit that organizes and supports many educational and cultural initiatives, including the Festival of Friendship, we named St. Martin de Porres as our Director of Development. We hired him for the job because, in 16th Century Peru, Martin founded a children’s hospital and an orphanage in Lima, thanks to his ability to interest wealthy patrons in these projects. Each year since our founding, we have prayed novenas to ask for this saint’s help in finding donors who will support our revolution of tenderness. And each year, St. Martin has come through for us! This year, as you pray the double novena with us, please prayerfully consider making a tax-deductible donation to support our work.

A note on the sources for the prayers: the introduction and first prayer for each day of the St. Charles’ novena come from a booklet he wrote to provide spiritual healing for his people in the time of the plague. These prayers struck us as so fitting, given our current plague, that we have incorporated them. To introduce the St. Martin novena prayers, we have quoted from the writings of the Peruvian saint’s many admirers. Otherwise, we have turned to the liturgical texts from the Roman Missal and the Liturgy of the Hours to furnish the best prayers for our novenas, just as we did in honor of St. Jude.

The Prayers:

St. Charles Borromeo
Day One:

When you are sitting by the fire with your family, standing and walking about the house, rising in the morning and retiring at night, and in a word always and everywhere, you must by good observance of God’s precepts and rule of Christian life have at heart Christ’s teaching and example from the Gospels.
[Charles Borromeo, “Booklet of Reminders”]

You, Lord, who have the power to renew the heavens, the earth, and all things, give to all of us that new heart, that new spirit which you promised us through the mouth of your prophet: And I will give you a new heart, and put a new spirit within you (Ezekiel 36:26). Bestow it upon us, Lord, with such abundance that it will produce in us, efficaciously and constantly, new resolutions, new customs, a new way of life, and in the end, that eternal renewal which the new Adam, our Lord Jesus Christ, already came into the world to bring us. With this help, our heart shall be enlarged, reforms will no longer seem hard, nor your service burdensome. But the yoke will be sweet and the weight of your holy commandments light to us. We ask this through your son, our Lord, Jesus Christ.
[Charles Borromeo, “Booklet of Reminders”]

Preserve in the midst of your people,
we ask, O Lord, the spirit with which you filled
the Bishop Saint Charles Borromeo,
that your Church may be constantly renewed
and, by conforming herself to the likeness of Christ,
may show his face to the world.
Who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.

Our Father, Mail Mary, Glory Be

St. Martin de Porres
Day Two:

“When Martin became a Dominican lay brother, he soon became a one-man charity agency in the city of Lima. This dark skinned friar in his black and white habit traveled the streets of a cruel and indifferent city, to bring healing and compassion to the Indian outcast, the abandoned slave, and the forgotten child. During the day St. Martin de Porres was a man of action, during the night he was a man of prayer, a mystic. For more than 40 years he lived out his calling as ‘Father of the Poor.’”
[Rev. Cyprian Davis, OSB]

Blessed is the man who is found without fault,
who does not make gold his life's object,
who does not put his trust in wealth.
- His future will be secure in the Lord.

Who is this man that we may praise him,
for he has done wonders in his life?
- His future will be secure in the Lord.

O God, who led Saint Martin de Porres
by the path of humility to heavenly glory,
grant that we may so follow his radiant example in this life
as to merit to be exalted with him in heaven.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, for ever and ever.
[Collect for the Memorial of St. Martin de Porres, Roman Missal]

Our Father, Mail Mary, Glory Be