Novena - BRING THEM HOME

Is there an empty chair at your family's Christmas Eve Mass that used to be filled by your child or grandchild?

Have you learned to change the subject at family dinners, because you already know exactly how the conversation about faith will go?

If either question found you, this novena was written for you.

Bring Them Home is a 9-day novena for parents and grandparents carrying the quiet, ongoing ache of a child who has walked away from the faith.

Each day places you in the company of someone who understood this exact struggle: Saint Monica, who prayed for her son Augustine for over thirty years before his conversion; Our Lady of Sorrows, who stood at the foot of the cross unable to change what was happening to her son; Saint Rita of Cascia, who prayed her own sons away from a path of real harm; and seven others who walked this same road before you.

Every day follows the full, traditional structure of a Catholic novena: the Sign of the Cross, an opening prayer, a short meditation, a moment to bring your child's name before God, the day's specific prayer, the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be, a closing prayer, and a verse of Scripture to carry with you.

This novena makes no promise that your prayer, prayed for nine days, will bring your child home by the tenth.

What it offers instead is nine days of real company in the waiting, and a way to keep praying, faithfully and by name, for as long as it takes.