Every November, as my family was cleaning up from Thanksgiving dinner, my mother and her sisters would start talking about Christmas. They would discuss gifts, dinners, decorations and donations. At some point in the conversation, my oldest aunt would always insert one final instruction: “Don’t forget about the Hail & Blesseds!”
The “Hail & Blesseds” was her way of reminding the family to prepare for Christmas with prayer. The prayer goes by many titles. It has been called the St. Andrew Novena, the Christmas Anticipation Prayer, the Prayer to Obtain a Special Favor and, as Aunt Claire would say, the “Hail & Blessed” prayer.
Aunt Claire always insisted that those who recited this prayer fifteen times a day from the feast of St. Andrew (November 30) until Christmas Eve, would obtain the favor they requested.
As a child, I assumed this prayer was an old custom that my family had brought over from Poland or Ireland. Aunt Claire was following in a long line of pious relatives who had exaggerated the power of this devotion. So, one Thanksgiving, deciding I had nothing to lose, I asked Aunt Claire to write down the prayer so that I could participate in the custom and claim my special gift on Christmas Day.
I rushed through the prayer each day, fumbled over some of the archaic language and kept wondering how these religious words would lead to more toys on Christmas morning.
That first year, I did not receive the gift that I had hoped for. Not being good in math, I figured I must have missed a few prayers one day and this had invalidated the results. I tried again the following year and the year after that. As I entered high school, I began to feel that this prayer was just one more medieval legend that had been embellished and handed down to people with a lot of faith but not a lot of common sense.
During this same time period, I was learning about St. Francis de Sales and his spirituality from the Oblates and my teachers at North Catholic High School. I discovered the practical spirituality of St. Francis. I also found out about his own devotions to the Virgin Mary and the Incarnation.
When I eventually entered the Oblate community, I learned more about the present moment, the sanctification of daily life and the optimism and joy we experience in relation to God, creation and our neighbor.
Eventually, I recognized that these virtues and practices of St. Francis and the Oblates were all part of that devotion that I had been taught by my family and had prayed every Advent. That old prayer, with it’s emphasis on the “hour and the moment” was really a reminder to live each day in God’s presence and to be God’s image and likeness to the world.
“Hail and blessed be the hour and the moment…” was a reminder that this hour and this moment are sacred. When we live the Incarnation we bring Jesus into the world - not just for 25 days, but every day.
I’m not sure if the Christmas Anticipation Prayer was known to St. Francis de Sales but I do know that it has the qualities of a true Salesian devotion.
I encourage you to make this prayer your own so you can recall God’s presence in our own moments, hours and days. You may not get the gift you are hoping for but I can guarantee you will be given the grace to see God present in every hour and every moment.
Rev. Jack Kolodziej, OSFS
Director of Development
Wilmington-Philadelphia Province
