The St. Andrew Christmas Novena

The prayer

Wordings vary slightly between Catholic publishers. The text above is the one printed by the St Paul Center. EWTN prints this version:

Either is fine. Pick one and stay with it, so the words go into your family by Christmas.

The custom, stated plainly

Fifteen times a day, from 30 November to 24 December. That is the whole instruction, and Ascension, the St Paul Center and the Archdiocese of Los Angeles all print the same fifteen-a-day custom beginning on the feast of Saint Andrew. Ascension puts it as praying the prayer “FIFTEEN times each day from the feast of St. Andrew (November 30th) until Christmas Eve.” The Archdiocese of Los Angeles prints it as “traditionally prayed fifteen times each day, beginning on the feast of St. Andrew (November 30) and concluding on Christmas Eve.”

There is no formula to learn, no set of daily meditations to keep up with, no book to buy. One prayer. A tally you keep in your head or on your hand. It is about as simple as an Advent devotion gets, which is exactly why it survives in households that cannot manage anything longer.

Is it actually a novena?

No — not in the strict sense, and it is worth being straight about that. A novena is nine days of prayer for one intention. This devotion runs twenty-five days: 30 November plus the twenty-four days of December up to Christmas Eve. It carries the name by custom, not by arithmetic. The St Paul Center calls it the Christmas Anticipation Novena, and that first half describes it better: you are counting down to the hour the prayer names.

If you want the shape and the purpose of a real novena — and the Church’s own nine days, from the Ascension to Pentecost — start with what a novena is.

About the promise you will see

Some pages that print this devotion add a line — Ascension prefaces it “It is piously believed that,” and a Chesterton Academy page “Tradition holds that” — saying whoever prays it fifteen times a day until Christmas Eve will obtain the favor requested. Others — the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and the St Paul Center among them — print the same custom with no promise attached at all.

We are not going to repeat the promise. Look at what the prayer actually says: vouchsafe, I beseech Thee … to hear my prayer and grant my desires. It asks. Asking a good Father for something is what the Our Father has us do every day — give us this day our daily bread — so ask, and ask with confidence. But a count of fifteen is not a lever that moves God, and a devotion is not a transaction. Pray it because Advent is short and your household needs the habit. If the thing you asked for comes, thank Him. If it does not, you have still spent twenty-five days naming the hour God became a child in the cold, which is not a small thing to have done with December.

Where it came from — honestly, no one we checked knows

You will find the claim that this prayer came out of nineteenth-century Ireland, or that it was written by a particular priest, or that it appeared first in one prayer book. None of the five pages we opened gives a source for any of that. We opened EWTN, Ascension, the St Paul Center, the Archdiocese of Los Angeles and a Chesterton Academy page: none of them names an author, a date, or a country.

So we will say only what we can stand behind. The prayer is old enough and widespread enough that Catholic publishers, an archdiocese and a Catholic school print it without hesitation; where it began is not documented in anything we could open. Treat every origin story you read about it — including the Irish one — as an unverified tradition until someone produces the printing. A devotion does not need a pedigree to be good, and inventing one for it does no honour to Saint Andrew.

The 2026 dates

From the bishops’ own liturgical calendar for the dioceses of the United States:

• Day 1 — Monday, 30 November 2026. Saint Andrew, Apostle; a Feast on the Church’s calendar, kept in red.
• Tuesday, 8 December 2026 — the Immaculate Conception, patronal feast of the United States and a holy day of obligation. Mass that day, on top of the prayer.
• Sunday, 13 December 2026 — the Third Sunday of Advent; the bishops’ calendar gives the day’s colour as violet or rose. You are past halfway.
• Day 25 — Thursday, 24 December 2026. Christmas Eve. The last fifteen, then the Vigil Mass — which satisfies the Christmas obligation (canon 1248 §1).

Started late? Start anyway. This is a private devotion, not a precept: a missed day is not a sin and does not have to be made up. Nobody is keeping score but you.

A father’s plan for the fifteen

Fifteen repetitions in one sitting is about six minutes and it is easy to skip. Fifteen broken into three fives is almost impossible to skip, because each five rides on something you already do. Here is the plan that works in a house with children in it.

Two practical rules. First, lead it, do not assign it — you say it first, they answer; a father who prays in front of his children has taught more than a father who tells them to pray. Second, keep it to the end. The point of a twenty-five-day devotion is not the fifteen; it is that on 24 December your household has done one thing together every day for most of Advent. That is the whole training effect.

Why Saint Andrew

Andrew is the one who went and got his brother. In the Gospel of John he is following the Baptist, meets Christ, and “findeth first his brother Simon, and saith to him: We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ” (John 1:41, Douay-Rheims). The brother he dragged along is Peter.

Matthew tells the same call from the shore: “And Jesus walking by the sea of Galilee, saw two brethren, Simon who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the sea (for they were fishers). And he saith to them: Come ye after me, and I will make you to be fishers of men. And they immediately leaving their nets, followed him” (Matthew 4:18–20, Douay-Rheims).

That is why his feast is a fitting door into Advent for a man with a family. Andrew’s first act after finding Christ was to bring somebody home to Him. Twenty-five days of leading five prayers a night is the same act, at a smaller scale, with the people God actually gave you. Altar. Arms. Allegiance.

Frequently asked questions

Sources we opened

• Liturgical Calendar for the Dioceses of the United States of America, 2027 (USCCB; the 2027 liturgical year begins 29 November 2026, so it carries Advent 2026) — 30 November 2026 as the Feast of Saint Andrew, Apostle; 8 December 2026 as the Immaculate Conception, a holyday of obligation; 13 December 2026 as the Third Sunday of Advent; 24 December 2026 as an Advent weekday. usccb.org (PDF)
• St Paul Center — the prayer text used above, the instruction to pray it fifteen times a day beginning on the feast of Saint Andrew, and the name “Christmas Anticipation Novena.” stpaulcenter.com
• EWTN, “Christmas Novena” — the second wording printed above. ewtn.com
• Ascension — “FIFTEEN times each day from the feast of St. Andrew (November 30th) until Christmas Eve,” and the line, prefaced “It is piously believed that,” which we do not repeat as a promise. ascensionpress.com
• Archdiocese of Los Angeles — the same custom, printed with no promise attached. lacatholics.org
• A Chesterton Academy page — the same fifteen-a-day custom, prefaced “Tradition holds that.” chestertonqofm.com
• Douay-Rheims Bible — John 1:41 and Matthew 4:18–20 as quoted. John 1 · Matthew 4

Published 27 September 2026. Found an error? [email protected] — errata corrected the day they are found.