World Novena to Mary Help of Christians 2022

Rome (Italy). In preparation for the Solemnity of Mary Help of Christians, which is celebrated on 24 May 2022, the Salesian Family is united in the prayer of the World Novena, from 15 to 23 May 2022.

This year’s Novena is entrusted by the Rector Major of the Salesians of Don Bosco, Fr. Ángel Fernández Artime, to the Salesian Family group of the Salesian Cooperators and has as its theme the motherhood of Mary, who welcomes and protects everyone under her mantle. Mary Help of Christians listens to the requests for help, the struggles and the needs of the world, wraps them in her mantle, protects and comforts them in her embrace.

The contents of the Novena will take up Strenna 2022, “Do everything for love, nothing by coercion” (St. Francis de Sales), highlighting gestures of love as a response to those of conflict and division, and the Litany Loreto of prayer of the Rosary, each of which is associated with an event or a theme of current reality.

Each video – created by the “IME Communication srl” team of young video-audio and graphics professionals from the Southern Salesian Province, consists of various moments: a contemporary story written by Bruno Ferrero, the Rector Major’s comment, a Salesian reference with testimony of a Salesian Cooperator in the world and, at the end, the final prayer of invocation to Mary.

From 14 May, on the Homepage of the FMA Institute website, there will be a banner with the link to the videos of the Novena, available day by day in different languages.

The booklets with the texts, prepared in Italian, English, Spanish, French, and Portuguese, will instead be downloadable on the institutional website of the Congregation of the Salesians of Don Bosco.

The Solemnity of Mary Help of Christians was fixed on May 24 by Pope Pius VII in memory of his return to Rome on 24 May 1814, after his imprisonment under Napoleon in Fontainebleau. Originally the feast was limited to the Church of Rome, but was soon adopted by the Tuscan Dioceses (1816) and then extended to the Universal Church. The spread of devotion to Mary Help of Christians is attributed to Saint John Bosco, who chose her as the main patroness of the Salesian Family and of its works.