The Novena Every Catholic Single Should Be Praying This Lent

The season of sacrifice.

We all have to decide what our penitential practices for Lent will be. Common sacrifices include giving up a favorite food and, in our modern age, taking a break from social media. These are all very good things. I do them. But underneath each sacrifice we make is something deeper—the need to let go of control. The sacrifice of the will. 

We all have some sort of vision as to what our life should be like. If we’re on CatholicMatch, then part of that vision presumably includes a spouse that is still be waiting on. The ability to use this kind of foresight in preparing a future is good. It’s something that separates man from the animal world. But, like all gifts that God has given us, this too can become corrupted thanks to original sin. 

How can you tell when effective planning has turned into what a Twelve Step program might call “self will run riot”? For me, one of the tells is when I start to mentally “rush” through the activities needed to execute the plan. I can even tell myself “I’m barreling right now”. As in barreling forward, mentally careening out of control. There’s a need to pull back. 

But how? It’s hard enough to give up something that’s objectively bad for us. How do we rein in things that we should be doing and align them with the will of God? 

The answer to that question is to Surrender.

To give over our will to that of Almighty God. And one of the most effective tools I have found in doing this is the Surrender Novena. 

This novena comes via a private revelation given to Father Dolindo Ruotolo, an Italian priest who died in 1970. Christ Himself communicated the principles of this novena to Father Ruotolo, who since his death has been honored with the title “Servant of God.” 

For each of the nine days of the novena, you read a brief passage of what Our Lord instructed Father Ruotolo in the way of surrender—exactly what it means. Let’s take a look at some key pieces of that instruction. Please note that the “I” and “me” in the instruction refer to Jesus, who is the one doing the teaching…

Surrender does not mean a worried prayer asking Me to follow you and change your worry into prayer…You do not turn to me—you ask Me to adapt to your ideas.

A lot of commentators have accurately noted that the United States is basically a secularized society. There are a lot of reasons for this, but a big one is this—even among those of us who believe in God, we can still fall into the temptation of treating Him like a Divine ATM machine, there to dispense our requests as we see fit. 

It’s an easy trap to fall into. We know we have to plan. We know have to ask God for help in leading us on that plan. It’s a fine line to try and understand when we’re trying to lead Him rather than vice-versa. The Surrender Novena opens with the reminder of who exactly should be leading who on this journey. 

The life of dating and courtship offers plenty of opportunities where this discernment has to be exercised. We know we have to have a basic idea of what we are looking for in a spouse. Heck, we have to get very specific in a CatholicMatch profile. The vast number of profiles we then have to choose from can feed a desire to get “the perfect match.” But the success stories here are filled with examples of people who took chances and stepped outside their “perfect match zone” and found something even better. They found that something better because they surrendered their own will. 

Do you see evil growing instead of weakening? Close your eyes and say to me with faith, ‘you take care of it’. 

The word “evil” might be a little strong for the context of dating, but it’s certainly very common for discouragement to grow, rather than weaken. Even worse, that discouragement can lead to despair. And as far as evil itself goes, it’s not hard, with the state of the world today, to give up on the idea of a better future. 

All of this is very human. The Surrender Novena teaches us that there is no other alternative than simply giving our will over to Him. The darker forces in this spiritual battle we all live in are great at making themselves appear stronger than they really are. Only the complete surrender to Jesus will expose darkness for how tiny it really is. 

When I must lead you on a path different than the one you see, I will prepare you. I will carry you in my arms, I will let you find yourself like children who have fallen asleep in their mother’s arms, on the other bank of the river.

Do you have any interior promptings that you sense are from the Holy Spirit, but seem completely counterintuitive to the plan that you’ve developed and reasonably believe is in accord with God’s will? When that happens, it’s time to surrender. 

For me, I look back to the spring of 2007. I was living just outside Pittsburgh and working in the offices at CatholicMatch. To make a really long story really short, I felt a very gentle nudge that I should take a two-year break from dating and just focus on my life. It sounded like a good idea. But I didn’t follow through. I pursued another relationship. 

I gave in to my own plan and desires instead of God’s. Let’s just say I didn’t end as I had hoped and the bad after-effects stayed with me for years. Don’t make the same mistake. 

Now, this doesn’t mean that every casual inspiration comes from the Holy Spirit. If you feel like you are prompted “on a path different than the one you see”, talking with a spiritual director, a confessor, or just trusted friends is a part of reaching that conclusion.

And above all, a good life of prayer and meditation is essential. It’s important to know that our surrender is truly to God and not just to the ideas of other human beings. This brings us to our last point…

You surrender to human strength—or worse, to men themselves. Satan tries to do exactly this—to agitate you…to throw you into the jaws of human initiative. 

I believe the keyword in this lesson is agitate. To apply it to the dating life, are you feeling a lot of interior agitation stirred up over the person you haven’t met, the email that hasn’t been responded to, or the first date that didn’t turn into a second one? That could be a symptom of being in “the jaws of human initiative.” 

Please note that agitation is quite different from feeling some disappointment or a bit of a letdown. It’s certainly different from heartbreak. Agitation is something stirring up inside of you, when you feel like something (or some dark angelic creature) is grinding away at you. It’s a big warning sign. 

I HAVE TO DO SOMETHING DON’T I? 

This is my own question that comes in response to Our Lord’s instructions. We’re taught—correctly so—that we have a role a play and work to do in carrying out the plans of God. I would simply offer two thoughts…

*The culture we are formed by in the United States is a very individualistic one. Even the work ethic that exists in Christian communities has a Protestant backdrop. It places a very strong emphasis on what the individual person must do. I believe the result is that our understanding of what God expects of us is probably overstated. We can dial it back and still be playing our part 

*In my own experience, God usually provides one or two things that we can do, but only after we have completely surrendered to Him. Furthermore, if you have tried to surrender or give this novena a real try, you’ll see that surrender itself is very hard work. It’s interior and the world will not see the work. That doesn’t mean the work is not very real and very hard. 

So this Lenten season, why not learn to sacrifice a bit of your own will?

This novena is something I have come into contact with within the last year. It was referred to us by a family from church—one of those families who always seem peaceful and content and whose home seems to have a calm and gentle feel from the moment you walk in the door. They told my wife and I that they do this novena “on a loop”, just starting over as soon as they complete it. We haven’t been that dedicated, but we have done it very regularly. The difference is notable. My wife and I find ourselves thinking of the Surrender Novena’s lessons at different points in the day. 

So whatever you do this Lent, make Surrender a real part of it. The novena is just one of the many ways Christ has fulfilled His promise to be with us always.