A Novena to Saint Gerard Majella
Patron of mothers
The Mothers’ Saint
The Novena Prayer
Most Blessed Trinity, I thank you for the gifts and privileges you granted to Saint Gerard, especially for the virtues with which you adorned him on earth and for the glory you now give him in heaven. Through his merits, united with those of Jesus and Mary, grant me the grace for which I ask.
O good Saint Gerard, powerful intercessor before God's throne, I call upon you and seek your help. While on earth you always fulfilled God's plans; help me always to do God's holy will.
Gerard Majella (1726-1755) was a lay brother of the Redemptorist congregation who held no office and is invoked today over more cradles than almost any other saint, a patronage that developed after his death rather than during his life.
The Tailor’s Boy
The Novena Prayer
Most Blessed Trinity, I thank you for the gifts and privileges you granted to Saint Gerard, especially for the virtues with which you adorned him on earth and for the glory you now give him in heaven. Through his merits, united with those of Jesus and Mary, grant me the grace for which I ask.
O good Saint Gerard, powerful intercessor before God's throne, I call upon you and seek your help. While on earth you always fulfilled God's plans; help me always to do God's holy will.
Gerard's father died when he was twelve, and he was apprenticed to a tailor before working as a servant; he applied to join the Capuchins twice and was refused both times as too frail, before the Redemptorists accepted him on trial in 1749.
The Handkerchief
The Novena Prayer
Most Blessed Trinity, I thank you for the gifts and privileges you granted to Saint Gerard, especially for the virtues with which you adorned him on earth and for the glory you now give him in heaven. Through his merits, united with those of Jesus and Mary, grant me the grace for which I ask.
O good Saint Gerard, powerful intercessor before God's throne, I call upon you and seek your help. While on earth you always fulfilled God's plans; help me always to do God's holy will.
According to the traditional account, Gerard once told a girl to keep a handkerchief he had dropped, saying she would need it one day; years later, during a difficult labor, she is said to have called for the handkerchief and both she and the child survived, an episode credited as the origin of his patronage of childbirth.
Accused
The Novena Prayer
Most Blessed Trinity, I thank you for the gifts and privileges you granted to Saint Gerard, especially for the virtues with which you adorned him on earth and for the glory you now give him in heaven. Through his merits, united with those of Jesus and Mary, grant me the grace for which I ask.
O good Saint Gerard, powerful intercessor before God's throne, I call upon you and seek your help. While on earth you always fulfilled God's plans; help me always to do God's holy will.
In 1754 a young woman accused Gerard in writing of fathering a child; his superior, Alphonsus Liguori, the founder of the Redemptorists, questioned him directly, and Gerard offered no defense and accepted a severe penalty, including exclusion from communion, for several months before the accuser retracted the charge.
The Silence
The Novena Prayer
Most Blessed Trinity, I thank you for the gifts and privileges you granted to Saint Gerard, especially for the virtues with which you adorned him on earth and for the glory you now give him in heaven. Through his merits, united with those of Jesus and Mary, grant me the grace for which I ask.
O good Saint Gerard, powerful intercessor before God's throne, I call upon you and seek your help. While on earth you always fulfilled God's plans; help me always to do God's holy will.
Alphonsus Liguori, who investigated the accusation against Gerard, was himself canonized in 1839 and declared a Doctor of the Church in 1871, and remains the founder of the congregation Gerard served as a lay brother.
Ordinary Work
The Novena Prayer
Most Blessed Trinity, I thank you for the gifts and privileges you granted to Saint Gerard, especially for the virtues with which you adorned him on earth and for the glory you now give him in heaven. Through his merits, united with those of Jesus and Mary, grant me the grace for which I ask.
O good Saint Gerard, powerful intercessor before God's throne, I call upon you and seek your help. While on earth you always fulfilled God's plans; help me always to do God's holy will.
As a lay brother, Gerard served as sacristan, porter, gardener, and tailor within his community, work that left no separate written record beyond the observations of the men he lived among.
The Will of God
The Novena Prayer
Most Blessed Trinity, I thank you for the gifts and privileges you granted to Saint Gerard, especially for the virtues with which you adorned him on earth and for the glory you now give him in heaven. Through his merits, united with those of Jesus and Mary, grant me the grace for which I ask.
O good Saint Gerard, powerful intercessor before God's throne, I call upon you and seek your help. While on earth you always fulfilled God's plans; help me always to do God's holy will.
A note is recorded as having been pinned to the door of Gerard's cell reading that within, the will of God is done, as God wills it, and for as long as he wills it.
Dying at Twenty-Nine
The Novena Prayer
Most Blessed Trinity, I thank you for the gifts and privileges you granted to Saint Gerard, especially for the virtues with which you adorned him on earth and for the glory you now give him in heaven. Through his merits, united with those of Jesus and Mary, grant me the grace for which I ask.
O good Saint Gerard, powerful intercessor before God's throne, I call upon you and seek your help. While on earth you always fulfilled God's plans; help me always to do God's holy will.
Gerard died of tuberculosis on 16 October 1755 at Caposele, aged twenty-nine, and was beatified in 1893 by Pope Leo XIII and canonized in 1904 by Pope Pius X.
For This Child
The Novena Prayer
Most Blessed Trinity, I thank you for the gifts and privileges you granted to Saint Gerard, especially for the virtues with which you adorned him on earth and for the glory you now give him in heaven. Through his merits, united with those of Jesus and Mary, grant me the grace for which I ask.
O good Saint Gerard, powerful intercessor before God's throne, I call upon you and seek your help. While on earth you always fulfilled God's plans; help me always to do God's holy will.
Devotion to Gerard as patron of expectant mothers spread from Italy through Redemptorist missionaries to Ireland, the United States, and beyond, and his name is now invoked in maternity wards across many countries.
The prayer above is a traditional novena prayer to Saint Gerard, of unknown authorship and long in circulation, given here as it is commonly printed. Gerard Majella, 1726–1755, Redemptorist lay brother; the accusation was investigated by St. Alphonsus Liguori himself. The fifth day dissents from the older accounts, which drew a general rule from his silence. What follows each day is a fact from his life or from the history of his cult, one per day.
