The Christian Christmas Novena to do with the Children

In this article you will know and learn everything related to the Christmas Novena for Children , where you will see in detail each and every one of the prayers that must be performed in said novena together with the smallest of the house, all this with the purpose to commemorate the birth of our baby Jesus while at the same time making Christmas a date of friendship, hope, reconciliation, peace and above all love.

Christmas Novena for Children

The Christmas novena for children or also known as the novena of Christmas bonuses, is a fully Catholic custom that has been celebrated for a long time and is closely linked to the Christmas holiday, this was rooted in the countries Colombia, Venezuela and Ecuador, that is, that’s where its roots come from. This is a prayer to which it is prayed for a period of nine exact days, hence its name as the ninth, all this before the Christmas season begins. It should be said that said novena is analogous to the Posadas which are celebrated in Mexico and throughout Central America, this means that both share a great similarity.

Although this, in addition to being one more Catholic tradition, over the years it has become a great social event, since it makes all family members, workers and even entire communities meet every year in a certain place whether in churches, parks or in their own homes. Said novena can also be accompanied by a series of songs, specifically Christmas carols, and at the end it is normal for some appetizers to be shared.

The main purpose of the Christmas novena for children is to make a special commemoration of the birth of the baby Jesus, together with our loved ones and in this way, while our faith is renewed, we also spend time with the family, making the Christmas an unforgettable and memorable moment with each passing year.

This novena had its origins by Fray Fernando de Jesús Larrea, a Franciscan monk, who in 1725 became a great preacher both in Colombia and in his country of origin, Ecuador. For the year 1743 Fray wrote the first edition of the Novena de Aguinaldos or Novena for children at Christmas, this at the request of the founder of the Colegio de La Enseñanza doña Clemencia de Jesús Caycedo Vélez all this in the city of Bogotá in Colombia. Exactly 10 copies were printed and released for all audiences, this one underwent a series of small modifications over the years but it does not greatly affect the original version.

The Christmas novena to do with the children or novena de aguinaldo is carried out for 9 days in a row as its name indicates, specifically from December 16 to December 24, this recalling the months prior to the miraculous birth of the baby Jesus. Below are the prayers to follow during each of these days, from day 1 to 9 in a simple and clear way.

Prayer for every day

«Most Benign God of infinite charity that you loved men so much, that you gave them in your Son the best pledge of your love so that made man in the womb of a Virgin he might be born in a manger for our health and remedy; I, on behalf of all mortals, give you infinite thanks for such a sovereign benefit».

“In return for him I offer you the poverty, humility and other virtues of your humanized Son, begging them for his divine merits, for the discomfort with which he was born and for the tender tears he shed in the manger, that you dispose our hearts with deep humility, with fiery love, with total contempt for everything earthly, so that the newborn Jesus may have his cradle in them and dwell eternally». Amen

At the end, the Glory to the Father prayer is prayed exactly three times.

First day

“In the beginning of time, the Word rested in the bosom of his Father in the highest heavens; there was the cause, as well as the model of all creation. In those depths of an incalculable eternity the Child of Bethlehem remained before he deigned to descend to Earth and visibly take possession of the grotto of Bethlehem. That is where we must look for the principles of it that have never begun; from there we must date the genealogy of the eternal, which has no ancestors, and contemplate the life of infinite complacency that it led there».

«The life of the Eternal Word in the bosom of his Father was a wonderful life and yet, sublime mystery!, he seeks another abode, a created mansion. It was not because his infinite happiness lacked anything in his eternal mansion, but because his infinite mercy longed for the redemption and salvation of mankind, which could not take place without Him. Adam’s sin had offended God and that infinite offense could not be condoned except by the merits of God himself.

“Adam’s race had disobeyed and deserved eternal punishment; It was therefore necessary to save her and satisfy his guilt, that God, without leaving heaven, take the form of man on Earth and with obedience to the designs of his Father expiate that disobedience, ingratitude and rebellion ».

It was necessary, in the sights of his love, that he take the form, the systematic weaknesses and ignorances of man; that he grow to give him spiritual growth; let him suffer, to teach him to die to his passions and his pride. And for this reason the Eternal Word, burning with the desire to save man, resolved to become a man as well and thus redeem the guilty”.

second day

«The eternal word is about to take on its created nature in the holy house of Nazareth, where Mary and Joseph lived. When the shadow of the divine decree came to slide over her, Mary was alone and lost in prayer. She spent the silent hours of the night in the closest union with God; and while she prayed, the Word took possession of her dwelling created from her ».

«However, he did not arrive unexpectedly: before presenting himself he sent a messenger, who was the Archangel Saint Gabriel to ask Mary for God’s consent for the incarnation. The creator did not want to carry out this great mystery without the acquiescence of his creature ».

«That moment was very solemn: it was optional for Mary to refuse… With what adorable delights, with what ineffable complacency would the Holy Trinity wait for Mary to open her lips and pronounce the «yes» that must have been a soft melody for her ears, and with the which conformed his profound humility to the omnipotent divine will. The Immaculate Virgin has given her assent. The archangel has disappeared».

“God has clothed himself with a created nature; the eternal will is fulfilled and creation complete. In the regions of the angelic world, immense jubilation explodes, but the Virgin Mary neither heard nor would have paid attention to him. She had bowed her head and her soul was immersed in the silence that resembled that of God».

«The Word had become flesh, and although still invisible to the world, he already lived among the men that his immense love had come to rescue. He was no longer just the Eternal Word; It was the Child Jesus dressed in human appearance, and already justifying the praise that all generations have made of Him in calling Him the most beautiful of the sons of men».

third day

Thus the Child Jesus had begun his life incarnate. Let us consider the glorious soul and the holy body that he had taken, adoring them deeply. Admired in the first place in the soul of that Divine Child, considering ourselves in it the fullness of his sanctifying grace; that of his beatific science, whereby from the first moment of his life he saw the divine essence more clearly than all the angels and he read the past and the future with all his arcane knowledge ».

He knew nothing by acquisition that he did not know by infusion from the first moment of his being; but He adopted all the diseases of our nature to which He could worthily submit, even though it was not necessary for the great work that He had to accomplish. Let us ask him that his divine faculties make up for the weakness of ours and give them new energy; may his memory teach us to remember his benefits, his understanding to think of him, his will to do but what he wills and in his service.

“From the soul of the Child Jesus, let us now move on to his body, which was a world of wonders, a masterpiece from the hand of God. It was not, like ours, a hindrance to the soul; it was, on the contrary, a new element of holiness. He wanted it to be small and weak like that of children, and subject to all the inconveniences of childhood, to be more like us and participate in our humiliations ».

«The Holy Spirit formed that little divine body with such delicacy and such capacity to feel, that it could suffer excess to accomplish the great work of our redemption. The beauty of that divine body was superior to everything divine was superior to what has ever been imagined; the divine blood that began to circulate through his veins from the moment of incarnation is the one that washes away all the stains of the guilty world».

“Let us ask him to wash ours in the sacrament of penance, so that on his Christmas day he finds us purified, forgiven and ready to receive him with love and spiritual benefit.”

fourth day

“From his mother’s womb the Child Jesus began to put into practice his entire submission to God, which continued without the slightest interruption throughout his life. He adored his Eternal Father, he loved him, he submitted to his will, he resignedly accepted the state in which he found himself knowing all his weakness, all his humiliation, all his discomfort.

“Who among us would want to go back to such a state with the full enjoyment of reason and reflection? Who could knowingly sustain such a prolonged martyrdom, so painful in any case? That’s where the Divine Child entered in his painful and humble career; thus he began to annihilate himself before his Father, to teach us what God deserves from his creature, to atone for our pride, the origin of all our sins, and we make all the criminality and disorders of pride felt”.

“We want to make a real prayer; let us begin by forming an exact idea of ​​her contemplating the Child in his mother’s womb, The Divine Child prays and prays in the most excellent way. He doesn’t speak, he doesn’t meditate, he doesn’t melt into tender affections. His own state, accepted with the intention of honoring God, is his prayer and this state highly expresses all that God deserves and how he wants to be adored by us».

«Let us join the prayers of the Child God in the womb of Mary; let us join in the deep dejection and let this be the first affection of our sacrifice to God. Let us give ourselves to God, not to be something as our vanity continually pretends, but to be nothing, to remain eternally consumed and annihilated, to renounce the stimulation of ourselves, all care of our greatness even if it is spiritual, all movement of conceit. Let us disappear in our own eyes and may God alone be everything to us.”

Fifth Day

“We have already seen the life that the Child Jesus led in the bosom of his most pure Mother; let us see today all the life that Mary also led during the same period of time. Necessity today that we do not have in it if we want to understand, as far as it is possible to our limited capacity, the sublime mysteries of the incarnation and the way in which we have to correspond to them».

«Mary did not stop aspiring for the moment in which she would enjoy that terrestrial beatific vision; her the face of God incarnate. She was about to see that human face that should illuminate the sky for all eternity, she was going to read filial love in those same eyes whose rays should forever spread happiness in millions of chosen ones. She was going to see that face every day, every hour, every moment, for many years ».

«I was going to see him in the apparent ignorance of childhood, in the particular charms of youth and in the reflective serenity of mature age… I would do everything I wanted from that divine face; she could hold it close to hers with all the freedom of maternal love; cover with kisses the lips that should pronounce the sentence to all men; to contemplate her at her pleasure during her sleep or her wakefulness, until he had learned her by heart… how ardently she longed for that day!».

«Such was the expectation of Mary…it was unheard of in itself, but that did not stop it from being the magnificent type of all Christian life. Let us not be satisfied with admiring Jesus residing in Mary, but by essence, power and presence. Yes, Jesus is continually born in us and from us, through the good works that he makes us capable of accomplishing and through our cooperation with grace; so that the soul of the one who is in grace is a perpetual womb of Mary, an interior Bethlehem without end».

“After communion, Jesus dwells in us, for a few moments, really and substantially as God and as man, because the same Child who was in Mary is also in the Blessed Sacrament. What is all this but a participation in the life of Mary during those wonderful months, and an expectation full of delights like hers?

Day Six

«Jesus had been conceived in Nazareth, home of Joseph and Mary, and there it was believed that he would be born, according to all probabilities. But God had arranged otherwise and the prophets had announced that the messiah would be born in Bethlehem of Judah, city of David. In order for this prediction to be fulfilled, God used a means that did not seem to have any relation to this object, namely the order given by the Emperor Augustus, that all the subjects of the Roman Empire be registered in the place where they originated» .

» Mary and Joseph, as descendants of David, were not excused from going to Bethlehem. Neither the situation of the Most Holy Virgin nor José’s need for the daily work that ensured their subsistence, could exempt them from this long and arduous journey, in the most rigorous and uncomfortable season of the year. He does not ignore Jesus in which place he should be born and inspires his parents to surrender to Providence, and thus unconsciously concur in the execution of the designs ».

«Interior souls, observe this handling of the Divine Child, because it is the most important of the spiritual life; learn that whoever has given himself to God no longer has to belong to himself, nor does he have to want at every moment but what God wants for him; blindly following him even in outward things, such as changing places wherever he pleases to lead him.

You will have occasion to observe this dependence and inviolable fidelity throughout the life of Jesus Christ, and this is the point on which the saints and truly interior souls have taken pains to imitate him, absolutely renouncing their own will.

day seven

«Let us represent the journey of Mary and Joseph to Bethlehem, taking with them, not yet born, the Creator of the universe made man. Let us contemplate the humanity and obedience of this Divine Child who, although of Jewish race and having loved his people for centuries with an inexplicable predilection, thus obeys a foreign prince who forms the population census of his province, as if there were for him in that circumstance something that flattered him, and he wanted to hurry to take advantage of the opportunity to be registered officially and authentically as a subject at the moment he came into the world».

“Is it not strange that humiliation, which causes such invincible repugnance to the creature, seems to be the only created thing that has attractions for the Creator? Will not the humility of Jesus teach us to love that beautiful virtue? Ah…! May the time come when the desired of the nations appears, because everything cries out for this happy event. The world, immersed in darkness and discomfort, seeking and not finding relief from its ills, sighs for its Liberator. Joseph’s longing, Mary’s expectation, are things that human language cannot express.

“The Eternal Father is, if it is permissible to use this expression, adorably impatient to give his only Son to the world, and to see him take his place among visible creatures. The Holy Spirit burns with desire to present to the light of day this holy humanity so beautiful that He Himself has formed with such special and divine care, As for the Divine Child, object of so many longings, let us remember that towards us he advances as much as towards Bethlehem, let us hasten with our desire the moment of your arrival; let us purify our souls to be his mystic abode, and our hearts to be his earthly Manis; may our acts of selfless mortification “prepare the ways of the Lord and make straight his paths.”

Eighth Day

«In that place that had previously been destined for animals, while the Virgin seemed to sleep on those straws, Saint Joseph sat by the fire with the intention of spending the night awake. Gazing at the flame, he pondered how the Christ Child would be when he was born in that stable. On the one hand, he felt like crying because of how badly the Belén people had behaved. But on the other hand, as he knew that many would change when they met Jesus, and would truly repent of his bad life, he also felt joy thinking about how little was missing. Then he thought of himself, since everything seemed little to him for the Son of God, he decided to wait for him, repeating to him many times that he loved him. But he was more exhausted and he fell asleep. It is very good that every night, before going to bed, we examine how we have behaved during the day. But for this we have to be brave and not be afraid to tell each other the truth even if it costs us. Those who always tell the truth are the ones that please Jesus the most, who became a man to tell it to all of us. Liar children, even if their lies are not very big, they move away from Jesus and do not love him. To erase all the lies we have told, on this penultimate day of the novena, let us try to wait for the Child of God, repeating to him many times that we love him.”

day ninth

«The night has completely closed in the bells of Bethlehem. Discarded by the men, and seeing themselves without shelter, María and José have left the inhospitable town and have taken refuge in a grotto that was at the foot of the hill. The donkey that had served her as a humble mount during the trip followed the queen of the angels, and in that cave they found a meek ox, probably left there by one of the travelers who had gone to seek lodging in the city».

«The Divine Child, unknown to his rational creatures, is going to have to go to irrational praises so that they warm the icy atmosphere of that winter night with their warm breath, and show him with this and with their humble attitude the respect and adoration that Bethlehem had denied him. The reddish lantern that Joseph holds in his hand dimly illuminates that very poor enclosure, that manger full of straw that is a prophetic figure of the wonders of the altar, and of the intimate and prodigious Eucharistic union that Jesus will contract with the men. Mary is in prayer in the middle of the grotto, and thus the hours of that night full of mystery go by silently».

«But midnight has come, and suddenly we see inside that manger, shortly before empty, the divine Child expected, predicted, desired for four thousand years with ineffable longing. At his feet prostrates his Most Holy Mother, in the transports of an adoration of which nothing can give an idea. José also approaches and pays him the homage with which he inaugurates his mysterious and imponderable role as adoptive father of the Redeemer of men».

«The multitude of angels descending from heaven to contemplate this incomparable wonder, let their joy explode and make the harmonies of that Gloria in Excelsis vibrate in the air, which is the echo of the adoration that occurs around the Most High, made perceptible for an instant to the ears of poor Earth. Summoned by them, the shepherds of the region come in droves to adore the newborn and present their humble offerings. The mysterious star of Jacob is already shining in the east, and the splendid caravan of the Magi is already setting off for Bethlehem, who in a few days will come to deposit gold, frankincense, and myrrh at the feet of the Divine Child, which are symbols of charity, adoration and mortification».

“O beloved Child! We too, who have made this novena to prepare ourselves for your Christmas day, want to offer you our poor adoration. Do not reject it! Come into our souls, come into our hearts full of love! Ignite in them the devotion to your holy childhood, not intermittent and only limited to the time of your Christmas, but always and at all times; devotion that faithfully practiced and zealously propagated, leads us to eternal life, freeing us from sin and sowing us all the Christian virtues».

At the end of each day of the Novena, other prayers can be added, some of the most common being: Prayer to the Blessed Virgin, Prayer to Saint Joseph and Prayer to the Divine Child Jesus. After that, to raise spirits a bit and get out of the monotony, you can do some Christmas Joys which will be seen below to finally conclude the prayer of the Christmas Novena for Children .

Christmas joys

It is important to mention that the realization of the Novena, in addition to uniting the family and strengthening their faith in our God, also makes the smallest of the house learn and discover about the world of God, and therefore begin to interest them more. said topic.