Christmas Novena

I started this blog on the day when the Christmas Novena began… and a Visitandine friend of mine, Grace MacCormack, asked me about the Christmas novena and the Salesians. In preparing some notes for her (she is a musician and a liturgist), I thought I'd post my little essay here too. Why not? Lent has started, but I'm thinking of Advent.

Here goes…

CHRISTMAS NOVENA: The Christmas Novena grew out of the devotion to the Incarnation fostered by the Vincentians (Priests of the Mission) in Torino in the early 1700s. The Marchesa Gabriella Marolles delle Lanze, Verrua Savoia and Caluso, came to live in Torino when her husband died. (Verra Savoia was the fortress from which Principe Eugenio di Savoia was able to ward off the French attacks in 1704-1705, expelling them from Savoy and Piedmont in 1706).

The Marchesa settled in a house close to the convent of the Vincentians (now the chancery for the archdiocese), and worshiped regularly in their external oratory, dedicated to the Immaculate Conception.

Because of her contact with the Vincentians, the Marchesa Gabriella Marolles delle Lanze nurture the devotion to the Incarnation, and suggested that the feast of the Incarnation be solemnized with a novena. The learned and pious Fr Antonio Vacchetta CM, formation director for the CM theology students, composed a new novena, incorporating antiphons from the Roman breviary, verses from the prophets and passages from the psalms that refered to the Messiah. The novena was celebrated for the first time in December 1720, in the church of the Immaculate Conception.

As the Torinese Vincentians preached missions throughout Piedmont, Lombardy and Liguria, they brought the novena with them, and this is how the novena spread throughout different parts of Italy. It became the music of Advent in many places; most wonderful are the "O" antiphons for the magnificat.

SALESIAN CONNECTION WITH THE CHRISTMAS NOVENA: Of course, as a Society we have our roots in Torino. One of Don Bosco's spiritual guides was Fr Marcantonio Durando, provincial of the CMs and rector of the House of the Visitation (where Don Bosco made his retreat before ordination). Don Bosco was ordained in the church of the Immaculate Conception on 5 June 1841. He introduced the boys to the Christmas Novena at his Youth Hostel and Oratory in the Valdocco district of Torino, and published popular editions for the people. And Salesians missionaries brought the novena with them wherever they went -- in an age where worship was in Latin, there was no problem. Thus, the Salesians have always celebrated this Novena, and after 1960, translated it from Latin into many different languages.

I myself first took part in the novena by when I was 14, and by the end of the 9 days I knew all the chants (except the magnificat antiphons) by heart. This year in Rome we sang it in Italian, and although we have Salesians from 20 different countries and all five continents in the community, everyone knew the melodies: it was a matter of fitting the Italian words to the service that they all knew in their own languages. But of course, none of them know that it is Vincentian in origin, nor that the Marchesa sponsored the writing and the first celebration. They just know that this is the novena that Don Bosco and his boys always prayed and sang to prepare for Christmas at Valdocco.