Attending the 100th novena to St. Francis Xavier

By Tanya Connor | The Catholic Free Press

WORCESTER – Participating in the 100th annual St. Francis Xavier Novena at St. John Parish was a privilege for preachers and people in the pews. For many, making the Novena of Grace through the years has been special, enhanced by family connections. For others, it’s a relatively new experience. Some people have experienced the novena at other parishes, but the March 4-12 devotion to the co-founder of the Jesuits has been held at St. John’s for a century.

“You know you’ve made it as a priest in Worcester if you get invited to preach the St. Francis Xavier Novena,” said Father Frederick D. Fraini III, pastor of North American Martyrs Parish in Auburn. “And then to be asked in the centennial year, it means all the more. What a tremendous honor and a privilege.”

Every time he’s asked to celebrate Mass and preach at the novena that his family cherished, it means more than words can say, he said. His mother’s parents brought their children there, praying that they would be faithful Catholics, and they have been, he said. The novena influenced the vocation of one of them – Worcester diocesan priest Father Edmund F. Falvey, now deceased.

“I was very moved by it,” said Francis R. Carroll, novena committee chairman, who attended some of the Masses before resorting to online watching because of health problems. “And to think this year we brought someone from Rome. It was a good way to top it off.”

He was talking about Jesuit Father Mark A. Lewis, rector of the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome.

Father Lewis told The Catholic Free Press that when he became rector last fall, the first letter he saw was from Mr. Carroll.

“It was … one of those great things where you’re in something new and you get something from an old friend,” Father Lewis said. “Very consoling.” He recalled his great experience preaching at the novena 14 years ago when he was provincial of what was then the Jesuits’ New Orleans Province.

“I was happy to come back,” he said.

He made his March 8-15 trip to the United States for the novena.

The Novena of Grace “used to be a pretty popular devotion,” he said, recalling that his mother attended it at a Jesuit parish in Miami.

“Her intention, which she told me after I became a priest, was to have a priest in the family,” he said.

Father Lewis said he would be surprised if there is anywhere, besides St. John’s, where the novena has been held for 100 consecutive years.

“It’s interesting because it’s not a Jesuit parish, it’s not a parish named after St. Francis Xavier,” he said; St. John’s has taken on this devotion as part of its identity.

Alice Bernard, of St. Paul Parish in Warren, said she has a 1929 novena booklet that belonged to her grandfather. He attended from at least that year until his death in 1972 and has an image of St. Francis Xavier on his tombstone at St. John’s Cemetery, she said.

“It was because of my grandfather’s devotion that I knew” about the novena, said Mrs. Bernard, who came this year with her husband, Philip.

When their children were young she brought them to the novena, where she prayed for more children. They named one of those children Francis Xavier.

Sandra Brothers, of Christ the King Parish, said her husband’s mother named him for the saint after making the novena at Sacred Heart Parish for a healthy baby. Her first-born had died at 6 months old.

This year Mrs. Brothers was missing her husband, Francis Xavier Brothers, who died last April and had attended the novena.

She started making the Novena of Grace at age 13 at Sacred Heart. The previous year she was hospitalized and her older sister made the novena for her.

“Once I got married, we started coming here,” Mrs. Brothers said, explaining that Sacred Heart no longer had the novena.

“I can’t believe it’s 100 years,” she said of the St. John’s novena milestone, adding that St. Francis Xavier has been “very good to us.”

The novena is a very special tradition, said Deacon Eduardas V. Meilus, who serves at St. John’s. He spoke of graces coming from it and said he sometimes had the honor of preaching. This year he assisted at Masses.

St. John’s music director, Edward Lally, a member of St. George Parish, said, “I’m from Chicago; I haven’t been here a year and a half.” He attended some of the novena services at St. John’s last year, he said, and “would be coming” this year even if it wasn’t his job. He’s impressed with St. John’s.

One of the preachers was Father Andrew Garavel, superior of the Jesuit community at the College of the Holy Cross, who came to Worcester last summer from California.

He said he was taken to the Novena of Grace in Danbury, Connecticut, as a child, and made it at Fairfield University when he was a seminarian.

“It’s a terrific honor” preaching for the novena’s 100th anniversary at St. John’s, where he was warmly welcomed, he said, adding, “You can tell there’s a real community spirit here.”

St. John’s pastor, Father John F. Madden, closed the novena Sunday recalling lessons this year’s preachers imparted. He said Bishop McManus invited worshippers to think about 100 years of people gathering there and receiving God’s grace.

Preaching at St. John’s Monday, Father Madden was still talking about the novena, encouraging worshippers to continue expecting God to answer their prayers. He recalled Msgr. Edmond T. Tinsley, now deceased, once telling novena-goers that God answers each prayer, sometimes with a miracle, sometimes with a challenge to do something in our lives.