New Year, final day of the Octave, and Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord
Join us in prayer...
On this the Eighth Day of Christmas, Final day of the Christmas Octave, Feast of the Circumcision of Our Lord, and first day of 2025, we ask you to join us in this Novena to our Patron Saint, St John the Apostle. This Novena will conclude on the final day of the Octave of St John the Apostle.
We are praying O Intemerata, the Medieval prayer recited in the Book of Hours of the Virgin Mary, seeking the intercession and prayer of the Blessed Mother and St John the Apostle.
O Untouchable, and forever blessed, singular and incomparable virgin Mary Mother of God, most grateful temple of God, the sacristy of the Holy Ghost, the gate of the kingdom of heaven, by whom next unto God the whole world liveth, incline O Mother of Mercy the ears of thy pity unto my unworthy supplications, and be pitiful to me a most wretched sinner, and be unto me a merciful helper in all things.
O most blessed John, the familiar and friend of Christ, which of the same Lord Jesus Christ was chosen a virgin, and among the rest more beloved, above all instructed in the heavenly mysteries, for thou wast made a most worthy Apostle and Evangelist: thee also I call upon with Mary mother of the same Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour, that thou wouldst vouchsafe to afford me thy aid with hers. O ye two celestial jewels, Mary, and John.
O ye two lights divinely shining before God. Chase away by your bright beams the clouds of my offences. For you are those two in whom the only begotten Son of God, for the merit of most sincere virginity, hanging upon the cross confirmed the privilege of his love, saying thus to the one of you: woman, behold thy son: and then unto the other: behold thy mother.
In the sweetness therefore of his most sacred love, through which by our Lord's own mouth, as mother and son you were joined in one, I a most wretched sinner recommend this day to you both my body and soul that at all hours and moments, inwardly and outwardly, you would vouchsafe to be unto me firm guardians, and before God devout intercessors: ask earnestly for me I beseech you, health of body and soul.
Procure I beseech you, procure by your glorious prayers, that the pure spirit, the best giver of graces, may vouchsafe to visit my heart and dwell therein, which may thoroughly purge me from all filth of vice, lighten and adorn me with sacred virtues: cause me perfectly to stand, and persevere in the love of God and my neighbour, and after the course of this life the most benign comforter may bring me to the joys of his elect, who with God the Father, and the Son liveth and reigneth world without end. Amen.1
JANUARY 1ST
ONÂ NEW YEAR'S DAY
Consider first, that on this day we keep the Octave of the birth of Christ, together with the festivity of his circumcision. when being yet but eight days old, he began to shed his sacred blood in obedience to his Father's will; subjecting himself to that most painful and most humbling ceremony, and bearing therein the resemblance of a criminal, as if he, like the rest had stood in need of the circumcising knife for the expiation of sin. Christians, learn here, from your infant Saviour, the lessons he desires to teach you in his circumcision; his unparalleled humility, his perfect obedience and conformity to his Father's will; his patience in suffering, and his ardent love and charity for us. He came to discharge the immense debt we owed by our sins to his Father's justice, by shedding the last drop of his blood in expiation of them; and behold he has here given us an earnest of this payment, by submitting himself this day to the knife of circumcision.
Consider secondly, and set before your eyes this divine infant, this innocent lamb of God, this beloved of your souls, beautiful beyond the children of men, all embrued in his own most sacred blood; and suffering in that tender age the cruel smart of a most sensible wound. O how sensible indeed to him! O how sensible to the loving heart of his blessed Virgin Mother! See with what affection she embraces him: se with what anguish of heart she bewails his sufferings: see with what tender compassion she strives to afford him all the comfort she is able. Learn of her the like affections of love and compassion for your suffering Lord.
O my soul, embrace, with her, thy infant Saviour, bleeding for thee. 'A bloody spouse thou are to me,' said Sephora to Moses, Exod. iv. 25: when to deliver him from the hand of the angel that threatened him with death, she touched his feet with the blood of her child whom she had just then circumcised. O how truly is our dear Redeemer a sponsus sanguinum, a bloody spouse to our souls, for whom he gives now this first fruit, and for whom he will one day give all his blood, to rescue us from the hand of the destroying angel! O blessed be his divine charity for ever!
Consider thirdly, that it is the duty of all Christians to imitate our Lord's circumcision, by a spiritual circumcision of the heart, which God so often calls for in the Scriptures, and always preferred before the carnal circumcision. This spiritual circumcision requires of us a cutting off, or retrenching, all disorderly affections to the world and its pomps; to the mammon of iniquity, and to the flesh, and its lusts; and a serious application of our souls to a daily mortification of our passions and corrupt inclinations. My soul, let us heartily embrace, and daily put in practice, this circumcision of the heart.
Conclude to make a return of thy heart to thy infant Saviour, who began on this day to shed his blood for thee; but see it be a heart purified, by a spiritual circumcision, from all such affections as are disagreeable to him.2
— Bishop Richard Challoner
https://medievalist.net/hourstxt/prayers.htm