novena

thumb|Novena to Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Brazil thumb|A booklet of the novena to Most Holy Name of the Blessed Virgin Mary|Sweetest Name of Mary, in Bikol and printed in [[Binondo, Manila dated 1867]]

A novena (from , "nine") is an ancient tradition of devotional praying in Christianity, consisting of private or public prayers repeated for nine successive days or weeks. The nine days between the Feast of the Ascension and Pentecost, when the disciples gathered in the Upper Room and devoted themselves to prayer, is often considered to be the first novena.