Latin St. Andrew Novena

This prayer seems to be enjoying a resurgence in popularity and I was able to find the Latin St. Andrew Novena, which is reproduced below. The short prayer is traditionally said fifteen times a day (piously!) from St. Andrew’s feast day on November 30 to Christmas Day, for a specific intention, and there have been many reports of miracles attributed to this practice.

The following short explanation and English form are taken from the EWTN website, where it is named the ‘Christmas Anticipation Prayer’:

Beginning on St. Andrew the Apostle’s feast day, November 30, the following beautiful prayer is traditionally recited fifteen times a day until Christmas. This is a very meditative prayer that helps us increase our awareness of the real focus of Christmas and helps us prepare ourselves spiritually for His coming.

Hail and blessed be the hour and moment In which the Son of God was born Of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in the piercing cold. In that hour vouchsafe, I beseech Thee, O my God, to hear my prayer and grant my desires, 
[here mention your request] through the merits of Our Saviour Jesus Christ, and of His blessed Mother. Amen.

The Latin St. Andrew Novena is taken from Veronica Brandt’s Youtube channel, where you can hear it sung to two different chants:

Salve et beata hora et memento, in quo Filius Dei natus est de purissima Maria Virgine in media nocte, in Bethlehem, in frigu penetrabili. In illa hora dignare, Deus meus, audire precem meam et tribue desideri a mea. [Here mention your request] Per merita Jesu Christi et ejus sanctissimae Matris. Amen.

Death of St. Andrew

St. Andrew was, of course, one of the twelve Apostles. He was the brother of Simon Peter, and had been a disciple of St. John the Baptist before following Christ. St. Andrew isn’t mentioned very often in Scripture, although the Gospel of John records that it was Andrew who told Our Lord about the little boy having some loaves and fishes which later miraculously fed the crowd of thousands.

After the death of Our Lord, St. Andrew evangelised in the areas around the Black Sea, and modern Turkey and Greece. He was eventually put to death in Patras, bound to an unusual cross. Known as crux decussata, this form of cross is shaped like an ‘x’. It is also known as a ‘saltire’. Like St. Paul, who was crucified upside-down, St. Andrew felt he could not be crucified on the same type of cross as Our Lord.

Other prayers in Latin can be found at our Latin Prayers page.