The Perpetual Novena — from St. Louis to Baclaran
How a weekly novena to Our Mother of Perpetual Help began in St. Louis in 1922, came to the Philippines, and why it is prayed every Wednesday in so many churches.
22 October 2026 · 2 min read
A novena is traditionally nine days of prayer. But the devotion to Our Mother of Perpetual Help is famous for a novena that never ends: the Perpetual Novena, prayed once a week, every week, in churches around the world.
St. Louis, 1922
The story begins at the Redemptorist church of St. Alphonsus — known as the "Rock Church" — in St. Louis, Missouri. The Redemptorists had set up a shrine to Our Mother of Perpetual Help there in the 1870s.
On 11 July 1922 the parish began a novena in honour of Our Mother of Perpetual Help. It drew huge crowds, and from that year a weekly devotion was held every Tuesday. In 1924 Father Henry Sutton introduced services in which the whole congregation sang and prayed together with the priest.
By 1928 the church was holding eleven services every Tuesday, attended by around fifteen thousand people, and the name "Perpetual Novena" was suggested: a novena whose nine weeks simply continued, week after week.
Across the world
Redemptorists carried the Perpetual Novena to their churches in North America and beyond. In the Philippines it began in Iloilo in 1946, then in Lipa the same year and in Cebu in 1947.
The Redemptorists had settled in Baclaran, on the edge of Manila, in 1932. On Wednesday 23 June 1948 they held the first Perpetual Novena there, with about seventy people. The next week the number had doubled. Within a year the small church needed eight sessions to hold everyone, and by 1950 parishes all over Manila were praying the same prayers. Today the Wednesday Novena at the National Shrine of Our Mother of Perpetual Help in Baclaran is one of the largest weekly devotions in the world.
Why Wednesday?
There is no single "correct" day. St. Louis began on Tuesdays; Baclaran chose Wednesdays, and because the Baclaran devotion became so well known, Wednesday is now the day most people associate with the Novena. Other shrines pray it on other days. What matters is the habit: one fixed day each week, given to Our Mother.
A novena that keeps changing lives
The novena texts have been revised over the years — in the Philippines, for example, in 1973 and again in 2016 for the 150th anniversary of the icon's return to public veneration. But the heart of the devotion is unchanged: people bring their petitions and their thanksgivings, and pray for one another.
That is also the idea behind this app. Every time someone prays the Novena here, they pray for every intention entrusted through it.