Novena
The Padre Pio Novena
Nine days with Padre Pio, the friar who heard confessions for hours a day, praying the novena he prayed for others.
The Padre Pio novena most people pray is the Efficacious Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus, three petitions Padre Pio recited daily for all who asked. Pray it once a day for nine days; to close on the eve of his September 23 feast, begin on September 14.
Quick facts
- Prayed to:
- St. Pius of Pietrelcina, known as Padre Pio
- Feast day:
- September 23
- When to pray:
- Begin on September 14 so that the ninth day falls on September 22, the eve of his feast on September 23.
- Prayed for:
- Healing, perseverance in suffering, and confession made well.
The Efficacious Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus
This is the prayer, word for word as the National Centre for Padre Pio prints it. The Centre says that it “was recited every day by Padre Pio for all those who asked for prayers”, and invites the faithful to pray it daily so as to be united with his prayer. Name your intention at each of the three petitions.
I. O my Jesus, you have said: “Truly I say to you, ask and it will be given you, seek and you will find, knock and it will be opened to you.” Behold I knock, I seek and ask for the grace of [insert your intention.]
Our Father…Hail Mary…Glory be to the Father…Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.
II. O my Jesus, you have said: “Truly I say to you, if you ask any thing of the Father in my name, He will give it to you.” Behold, in your name, I ask the Father for the grace of [insert your intention.]
Our Father…Hail Mary…Glory be to the Father…Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.
III. O my Jesus, you have said: “Truly I say to you, heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away.” Encouraged by your infallible words I now ask for the grace of [insert your intention.]
Our Father…Hail Mary…Glory be to the Father…Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.
O Sacred Heart of Jesus, for whom it is impossible not to have compassion on the afflicted, have pity on us miserable sinners and grant us the grace which we ask of you, through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary, your tender mother and ours.
Say the Hail, Holy Queen and add: St. Joseph, foster father of Jesus, pray for us.
The Hail, Holy Queen and the closing invocation, as the Padre Pio Foundation of America prints them after the novena:
Hail, Holy Queen, Mother of Mercy, our life, our sweetness and our hope! To thee do we cry, poor banished children of Eve. To thee do we send up our sighs, mourning and weeping in this valley of tears! Turn, then, O most gracious Advocate, thine eyes of mercy toward us, and after this, our exile, show unto us the blessed fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O clement, O loving, O sweet Virgin Mary.
St. Joseph, foster father of Jesus, pray for us.
Said slowly, the whole novena takes about five minutes.
How to pray the Padre Pio novena, and when
Pray the Efficacious Novena once a day for nine days in a row, with the same intention each day. That is the whole of it. Some people add a short prayer to St. Pio himself asking his intercession, such as the prayer to St. Padre Pio; others pray the prayer after Communion that bears his name, “Stay with me, Lord”.
To end on the eve of his feast, begin on September 14:
- Day 1: September 14, the Exaltation of the Holy Cross
- Day 2: September 15, Our Lady of Sorrows
- Day 3: September 16
- Day 4: September 17
- Day 5: September 18
- Day 6: September 19
- Day 7: September 20, the day he received the stigmata in 1918
- Day 8: September 21
- Day 9: September 22, the eve of his feast on September 23
Because Padre Pio himself prayed it every day, it is not tied to his feast. Many people pray it for nine days whenever a need arises, and some simply pray it daily for the rest of their lives, as he did. If you miss a day, carry on; the tradition of nine unbroken days is a discipline, not a condition.
Why is it called the “efficacious” novena?
Because each of its three petitions rests on a promise Jesus made in the Gospel, and quotes it back to him: “Ask, and it will be given you. Seek, and you will find. Knock, and it will be opened for you” (Matthew 7:7); “whatever you may ask of the Father in my name, he will give it to you” (John 16:23); “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away” (Matthew 24:35). The prayer’s confidence is in Christ’s word, not in the prayer.
“Efficacious” does not mean guaranteed. The Catechism warns that attributing the efficacy of prayers “to their mere external performance, apart from the interior dispositions that they demand, is to fall into superstition” (CCC 2111), and it answers the question every novena eventually raises: “Do not be troubled if you do not immediately receive from God what you ask him; for he desires to do something even greater for you, while you cling to him in prayer” (CCC 2737). Padre Pio prayed this novena every day for thousands of people, and not all of them received what they asked. What he asked of them was trust. The line repeated after every petition says it: “Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you.”
Who wrote it is not certain. It is often attributed to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, the seventeenth-century nun of the Sacred Heart apparitions, but none of the sources we read documents that. What is documented is that Padre Pio made it his own. For the feast and the wider devotion, see the Sacred Heart novena.
Who was Padre Pio?
Francesco Forgione was born on May 25, 1887, at Pietrelcina in southern Italy, entered the Capuchin novitiate at Morcone at fifteen, in January 1903, took the name Pio, and was ordained a priest on August 10, 1910. On September 20, 1918, in the choir of the friary at San Giovanni Rotondo, he received the stigmata, the wounds of Christ in his hands, feet and side, which he bore for the next fifty years. St. Paul wrote of himself, “I bear the marks of the Lord Jesus branded on my body” (Galatians 6:17); few people in history have been able to say it so literally.
What he actually spent his days doing was hearing confessions and saying Mass. For decades people queued for hours to confess to him. He was also investigated by the Holy See and for a time restricted in his ministry, and he obeyed. He founded a hospital, the Casa Sollievo della Sofferenza, the House for the Relief of Suffering, which opened in 1956. He died on September 23, 1968, was beatified on May 2, 1999, and was canonised by Pope St. John Paul II on June 16, 2002, as St. Pio of Pietrelcina. His feast is September 23. For his life in full, see St. Pio of Pietrelcina.
Praying the Padre Pio novena for healing
Many people come to this novena for someone who is sick, and it suits him: he spent his life among the suffering and built a hospital for them. Pray it with the treatment, not instead of it; the saint who founded a hospital would never ask you to choose. Name the person at each petition, ask for healing plainly, and ask as well for what they will need if healing is slow: courage, good doctors, and people around them.
And go to confession during the nine days if you can. Of all the things you might do inside a novena to Padre Pio, it is the one he would have asked for first. If it has been a long time, the guide to going to confession walks through it step by step.
“Ask, and it shall be given you: seek, and you shall find: knock, and it shall be opened to you.”
Go deeper
What is this novena?
The Padre Pio Novena is nine days of prayer asking the intercession of one of the most documented saints in modern history. He died in 1968, within living memory for many, and was canonised in 2002. Pio was a Capuchin friar in southern Italy who bore the stigmata, the wounds of Christ, for around fifty years, and who spent an extraordinary proportion of his life hearing confessions, sometimes for more than twelve hours a day. That second fact is the one worth holding onto. What he is remembered for popularly is the miraculous; what he actually did, day after day for decades, was sit in a confessional. His novena is often prayed for healing, which reflects the reputation that grew around him during his lifetime. It is also prayed for perseverance, and that suits him better. He spent years under Vatican investigation and was for a period forbidden to celebrate Mass publicly. He submitted without complaint and continued. A novena to Pio prayed by someone in a long, unglamorous, unresolved difficulty is a novena prayed to the right saint. The Church is careful about the extraordinary claims that circulate around him, and so should anyone praying his novena be. What is certain and enough is the confessional, the obedience, and the fifty years.
Keeping the nine days
Begin on September 14 if you want the ninth day on the eve of his feast. It is prayed year-round as well. Bring something long-running rather than something urgent. Pio’s particular witness is endurance under a difficulty that does not resolve quickly, and a novena for perseverance is closer to his life than a novena for a quick outcome. Go to confession during the nine days if you can. It is the single most fitting thing to do inside a Padre Pio novena, given how he spent his life. If you miss a day, carry on. Perseverance is the theme; treating a lapse as a disqualification would be against the spirit of the whole thing.
San Giovanni Rotondo stands on the same Gargano promontory as the ancient shrine of St. Michael at Monte Sant’Angelo, and Padre Pio was devoted to the archangel. Many pray the Prayer to St. Michael the Archangel alongside this novena.
Going to confession inside the nine days? A full examination of conscience — by the Ten Commandments, and it prints on a plain sheet.
For each of the nine days, or any day after: a prayer to St. Padre Pio — and the counsel he gave most often: pray, hope, and don’t worry.
The story is told that Padre Pio asked pilgrims from Naples why they had come so far when they had Fr. Dolindo Ruotolo at home. The prayer Fr. Dolindo is known for is the Surrender Novena — “O Jesus, I surrender myself to you, take care of everything!”
Questions people ask
When is the Padre Pio novena prayed?
Begin on September 14 so that the ninth day falls on September 22, the eve of his feast on September 23. It is also prayed at any time of year.
What is the Padre Pio novena prayed for?
Most often for healing, reflecting the reputation that grew around him in his lifetime, and also for perseverance in a long difficulty and for making a good confession.
Who was Padre Pio?
A Capuchin friar in southern Italy who bore the stigmata for around fifty years and spent much of his life hearing confessions, sometimes over twelve hours a day. He died in 1968 and was canonised in 2002.
Why is he associated with confession?
Because that is where he spent his life. Whatever else is said about him, the documented daily reality was decades in a confessional, and going to confession during his novena is the most fitting thing you can do inside it.
What is the novena Padre Pio prayed every day?
The Efficacious Novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus: three petitions, each quoting a promise of Jesus from the Gospel, followed by an Our Father, a Hail Mary, a Glory Be and “Sacred Heart of Jesus, I place all my trust in you”, and closing with the Hail, Holy Queen. He recited it daily for everyone who asked his prayers.
Is the efficacious novena guaranteed to work?
No. It is called efficacious because it rests on Christ’s own promises about prayer, not because it obliges God to grant a particular request. The Catechism calls it superstition to credit a prayer’s effect to its mere recitation (CCC 2111), and reminds us that God may be preparing something greater than what we asked (CCC 2737).
Who wrote the Efficacious Novena to the Sacred Heart?
Its author is not documented. It is often attributed to St. Margaret Mary Alacoque, but none of the sources we read gives evidence for that. What is certain is that Padre Pio prayed it every day for those who asked his prayers, which is why it is known as the Padre Pio novena.
