Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes: The Nine Days of Prayer and Their Spiritual Meaning

The Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes is a nine-day prayer to be prayed at home or on pilgrimage. It is rooted in the nine days Mary and the Apostles spent in the Cenacle before Pentecost (Acts 1:14) and prolongs the message of the 18 apparitions of 1858, from 11 February to 16 July: a call to prayer, penance, and filial trust.

This page belongs to our hub on praying at Lourdes.

Praying the Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes: The Text of the Nine Days

Here is the complete framework of the nine evenings to pray, in the spirit of the message that Mary entrusted to Bernadette Soubirous at the Grotto of Massabielle, between 11 February and 16 July 1858.

How to pray this novena

A novena (from the Latin novem, nine) is a school of perseverance in prayer, anchored in the Tradition of the Church. The Catechism recalls that “filial trust is tested - it proves itself - in tribulation” (CCC § 2734). It is not a mechanical rite: the CCC clearly distinguishes Christian prayer from every form of superstition (CCC § 2111). The efficacy comes from God, not from counting the days.

Each evening, take a few quiet minutes. The daily framework is simple: Sign of the Cross, intention and word of the day, the proposed prayer, three Hail Marys, and a brief closing prayer. You may begin at any time; the nine evenings preceding 11 February (the liturgical feast of Our Lady of Lourdes) are traditionally favoured.

Day 1 · The Immaculate Conception

On 25 March 1858, the feast of the Annunciation, the sixteenth apparition took place. Mary at last revealed her name to Bernadette, in the Bigourdan dialect: “Que soy era Immaculada Councepciou” — “I am the Immaculate Conception” (Laurentin, Récit). This name confirmed the dogma defined by Pope Pius IX four years earlier in the bull Ineffabilis Deus (8 December 1854).

Intention: to give thanks for Mary, preserved from all sin from her conception.

Prayer: O Mary conceived without sin, you who gave Bernadette the certainty of your name, obtain for us the grace to welcome this truth in our faith and to live it in our daily lives.

Hail Mary (×3). Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

Day 2 · Penance

On 24 February 1858, during the eighth apparition, Mary repeats three times: “Penance, penance, penance!” (Laurentin, Logia). Bernadette kisses the ground and advances on her knees, as a sign of conversion for sinners.

Intention: to ask for the grace of a contrite and humble heart.

Prayer: O Mary, you who call to penance, obtain for us the grace to recognize our failings and to return to your Son with a renewed heart, in the sacrament of reconciliation.

Hail Mary (×3). Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

Day 3 · The Church on the way

On 2 March 1858, Mary entrusts Bernadette with the words: “Go tell the priests to have people come here in procession and to build a chapel here” (Laurentin, Récit). The pilgrimage is thus willed by Mary herself.

Intention: to pray with and for the Church, Body of Christ on the way.

Prayer: O Mary, you who gather God’s people around the grotto, make us faithful pilgrims, united with our pastors and with the whole Church.

Hail Mary (×3). Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

Day 4 · For sinners

On 24 February 1858, during the eighth apparition, Mary asks Bernadette to kiss the ground “for sinners” and repeats three times: “Penance, penance, penance!” (Laurentin, Récit). This gesture inaugurates a particular intercession for those who wander from God.

Intention: to entrust to Mary those who do not yet know her Son or who have wandered from him.

Prayer: O Mary, refuge of sinners, remember all those we carry in our hearts; obtain for them the light of return to your Son.

Hail Mary (×3). Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

Day 5 · The spring of purification

On 25 February 1858, Mary tells Bernadette: “Go and drink of the spring and wash yourself in it” (Laurentin, Récit). Bernadette scrapes the ground and water gushes forth. Since then, the spring flows without interruption, feeding the sanctuary’s fountains and pools.

The water of Lourdes has no medical value of its own: its value is spiritual: it invites us to remember the water of baptism. According to the Sanctuary, the Church has recognized 72 miraculous healings out of more than 7,000 healing case files submitted at Lourdes since the apparitions (Sanctuary of Lourdes, “Les miracles de Lourdes”, accessed 19 October 2026). Dr Patrick Theillier, former head of the Lourdes Medical Bureau, discusses them in Lourdes, terre de guérisons.

Intention: to ask for the grace of inner purification.

Prayer: O Mary, you who brought forth the spring, purify our hearts and restore us to baptismal grace.

Hail Mary (×3). Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

Day 6 · The humility of Bernadette

Questioned after the apparitions, Bernadette would answer: “The Blessed Virgin chose me because I was the most ignorant” (Laurentin, Logia). Her words become a path of humility for every pilgrim.

Intention: to ask for simplicity of heart and evangelical smallness.

Prayer: O Mary, who chose the humblest of the children of Lourdes, teach us to prefer hidden service to any pursuit of glory.

Hail Mary (×3). Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

Day 7 · Marian intercession

The Church teaches that Mary is Mediatrix, mother in the order of grace (CCC § 969). This intercession adds nothing to the unique mediation of Christ: it manifests its maternal fruitfulness.

Intention: to entrust to Mary a precise grace, personal or familial.

Prayer: O Mary, mother in the order of grace, present to your Son the petition I entrust to you today: (name the intention). May his will be accomplished in me.

Hail Mary (×3). Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

Day 8 · Filial trust

On 18 February 1858, during the third apparition, Mary says to Bernadette: “Would you do me the favour of coming here for a fortnight?” (Laurentin, Récit). She adds: “I do not promise to make you happy in this world, but in the next.”

Intention: to persevere in prayer without fear, despite difficulties.

Prayer: O Mary, you who invited Bernadette to return day after day, obtain for us the grace of perseverance and a trust that does not grow weary.

Hail Mary (×3). Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us.

Day 9 · The missionary sending

Bernadette entered the Sisters of Charity and Christian Instruction of Nevers on 7 July 1866, carrying Mary’s message into religious life. She died at Nevers on 16 April 1879. Her body has been exposed at the Chapel of Saint-Gildard since 3 August 1925. She was beatified by Pius XI on 8 June 1925 and canonized by the same pope on 8 December 1933.

Intention: to give thanks for this novena and to ask for the grace to bear witness.

Prayer: O Mary, you who made Bernadette the messenger of the message of Massabielle, make of me, in my place and according to my strength, a discreet and faithful witness.

Hail Mary (×3). Our Lady of Lourdes, pray for us. Amen.

Novena: where does this nine-day prayer come from?

The novena finds its biblical matrix in the nine days Mary and the Apostles spent in the Cenacle, between the Ascension and Pentecost (Acts 1:14).

The Cenacle: the nine days with Mary

After Christ’s Ascension, Mary and the Eleven go up to the upper room and “all these were constantly devoting themselves to prayer, together with certain women, including Mary the mother of Jesus, as well as his brothers” (Acts 1:14, NRSV-CE). Nine days later, the Holy Spirit descends at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-4). This prayerful waiting of nine days is the matrix of every Christian novena. To pray a novena is to go to Mary’s school in the Cenacle.

To persevere without growing weary

Jesus himself teaches “the need to pray always and not to lose heart” (Lk 18:1-8, parable of the unjust judge). And he promises: “If two of you agree on earth about anything you ask, it will be done for you by my Father in heaven” (Mt 18:19-20).

The CCC recalls that filial trust “is tested - it proves itself - in tribulation” (CCC § 2734). The novena is this test made daily, sustained for nine days. It does not act as a mechanism: it disposes the one who prays to receive the grace God, in his wisdom, wishes to give.

The Marian meaning of the Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes

To pray this novena is to place oneself under the gaze of the Immaculate Conception, who named herself to Bernadette on 25 March 1858, at the Grotto of Massabielle.

From rue du Bac (1830) to the dogma of 1854, then to Lourdes 1858

Three dates mark the same Marian mystery. In 1830, in Paris, at rue du Bac, Mary appeared to Saint Catherine Labouré and asked for a medal to be struck bearing the invocation: “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” The Archbishop of Paris, Bishop de Quélen, canonically recognized the apparitions in 1836.

On 8 December 1854, Pope Pius IX defined the dogma of the Immaculate Conception in the bull Ineffabilis Deus: Mary was “preserved immune from all stain of original sin” from the first instant of her conception. Four years later, in Lourdes, Mary herself confirmed this dogma by saying to Bernadette: “I am the Immaculate Conception” (25 March 1858). The Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes thus belongs to a coherent historical and dogmatic sequence.

Mary, Mediatrix of all graces

The Catechism specifies: “This motherhood of Mary in the order of grace continues uninterruptedly from the consent which she loyally gave at the Annunciation and which she sustained without wavering beneath the cross, until the eternal fulfilment of all the elect” (CCC § 969). And it adds: “This very special devotion (…) differs essentially from the adoration which is given to the incarnate Word” (CCC § 971). To pray to Mary is not to adore Mary; it is to ask the mother of Christ to present to her Son what we carry.

Three other official Marian novenas to pray at any time

Three novenas recognized by the Church, coherent with the message of Lourdes, may be prayed without an imposed calendar: the Miraculous Medal, Perpetual Help, and the Immaculate Conception.

Novena to Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal (rue du Bac, Paris)

The apparitions to Saint Catherine Labouré, a novice Daughter of Charity, took place on 18-19 July, 27 November and December 1830, at 140 rue du Bac in Paris. They were canonically recognized in 1836 by Bishop de Quélen after inquiry. Catherine Labouré was canonized by Pius XII on 27 July 1947.

The novena is prayed over nine consecutive days around the key prayer given by Mary herself: “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.” It prepares the pilgrim directly for the message of Lourdes, since Mary here announces what Pius IX would proclaim in 1854 and what Bernadette would hear in 1858. Primary source: Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, 140 rue du Bac, Paris.

Novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help

The icon of Perpetual Help is of the Cretan school (15th century). It was entrusted to the Redemptorists by Pope Pius IX on 11 December 1865, with the reported words: “Make her known throughout the world.” It was solemnly crowned in the church of Sant’Alfonso in Rome on 23 June 1867. A proper liturgical office was approved, and the devotion, carried by the Redemptorists (CSsR), was spread worldwide.

In many Redemptorist parishes, a weekly novena has been celebrated for over a century, on Wednesdays or Saturdays. It may also be prayed over nine days at any time of the year. Primary source: Order of the Redemptorists (CSsR), cssr.news.

Novena to the Immaculate Conception

The Novena to the Immaculate Conception is traditionally prayed from 29 November to 7 December. It prepares for the Solemnity of 8 December — the day of the dogma proclaimed by Pius IX in 1854. However, it may be prayed at any time.

Pope Pius IX, in the bull Ineffabilis Deus, defined that Mary was “preserved immune from all stain of original sin” from the first instant of her conception (CCC § 490-493). The link with Lourdes is direct: it is this same name, “the Immaculate Conception,” that Mary reveals to Bernadette on 25 March 1858. Key prayer: “O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.”

Frequently asked questions about the Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes

Sources and references

Magisterium

• Catechism of the Catholic Church (CCC), editio typica, 1997 — §§ 490-493, 946-962, 969, 971, 2111, 2734, 2742-2745 (vatican.va).
• Pius IX, bull Ineffabilis Deus, 8 December 1854 (vatican.va).

Biblical sources

• Bible, NRSV-CE: Acts 1:14; Acts 2:1-4; Luke 18:1-8; John 4:21-24; Matthew 18:19-20.

Lourdes sources

• Sanctuary of Our Lady of Lourdes — lourdes-france.org (72 healings recognized as of 16 April 2025).
• Sanctuary of Lourdes, “Les miracles de Lourdes”, lourdes-france.com/miracles-et-guerisons/ (accessed 19 October 2026) — more than 7,000 case files submitted since the apparitions; 72 recognized healings, the most recent on 16 April 2025

Bernadettine corpus

• Laurentin R., Lourdes, récit authentique des apparitions — depositions of Bernadette (canonical trials 1858-1862).
• Laurentin R., Logia de Bernadette, vols. I-III.
• Theillier P., Lourdes, terre de guérisons — chapter “Le Bureau des constatations médicales” (72/7,300 cases).

Complementary Marian sources

• Chapel of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal, 140 rue du Bac, 75007 Paris — chapellenotredamedelamedaillemiraculeuse.com.
• Order of the Redemptorists (CSsR) — cssr.news.