Novena to Our Lady Of Good Counsel

The novena to Our Lady of Good Counsel is a nine-day prayer to the Blessed Virgin under one of her sweetest titles — Mater Boni Consilii, Mother of Good Counsel — asking her guidance in a doubt, a decision, a vocation, or any moment when the right path is hard to see. It is prayed above all for discernment: when we must choose and cannot tell the true good from its counterfeit, we bring the choice to the Seat of Wisdom. The devotion is bound to the miraculous fresco of Genazzano, near Rome, and its feast falls on 26 April, so the nine days are traditionally kept from 17 to 25 April. Below is the complete novena — the prayer of Pope Pius XII, the daily scheme, and the litany — with the history that makes this one of the surest of Our Lady's devotions for a troubled mind. If you are new to this form of prayer, see first our guide to what is a novena.

The full novena to Our Lady of Good Counsel

The heart of this novena is a single, complete prayer composed by Pope Pius XII and said once on each of the nine days, with your intention named within it. It is a prayer for light — for the mind that cannot see its way and the will that cannot hold its course.

The daily prayer

Say this prayer each day of the novena, naming your petition where indicated:

O Holy Virgin, to whose feet we are led by our anxious uncertainty in our search for, and attainment of, what is true and good, invoking thee by the sweet title of Mother of Good Counsel, we beseech thee to come to our assistance, when, along the road of this life, the darkness of error and of evil conspire towards our ruin by leading our minds and our hearts astray.

O Seat of Wisdom and Star of the Sea, enlighten the doubtful and the erring, that they be not seduced by the false appearances of good; render them steadfast in the face of the hostile and corrupting influences of passion and of sin.

O Mother of Good Counsel, obtain for us from thy Divine Son a great love of virtue and, in the hour of uncertainty and trial, the strength to embrace the way which leads to our salvation. (Here name your request.)

If thy hand sustains us, we shall walk unmolested along the path indicated to us by the Life and Words of Jesus our Redeemer; and, having followed freely and securely, even in the midst of this world's strife, the Sun of Truth and Justice under thy maternal Star, we shall come to the enjoyment of full and eternal peace with thee in the Haven of Salvation. Amen.

After the prayer, add:

Our Father… Hail Mary… Glory be…

Our Lady of Good Counsel, pray for us.

Many close each day with the Litany of Our Lady of Good Counsel given further below, or with a decade of the Rosary. Those who wish may join to the novena the wider Marian prayers of the Church — the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary, into which Pope Leo XIII himself inserted the invocation Mother of Good Counsel, and the ancient Hail Holy Queen.

The nine days

The prayer above is the same on all nine days — this is the traditional form, and no day carries a different text. What changes is the intention we bring. A sound and simple scheme is to keep one grace before Our Lady each day while turning the mind to a fresh aspect of her counsel:

• Day 1 — For light in my particular need. Name the decision or trouble that brought you here, and ask her to obtain the grace of clear sight.
• Day 2 — Against error. Ask to be kept from every false good that masquerades as true.
• Day 3 — For the wavering will. Ask not only to see the right but to have the strength to do it.
• Day 4 — For the refuge of sinners. Bring your sins and ask her, refuge of sinners, to counsel your return to God.
• Day 5 — In tribulation and anguish. Commend to her the fear and heaviness that cloud the mind.
• Day 6 — For those I must guide. Pray for the discernment to counsel others well — children, family, those in your care.
• Day 7 — For the shrine of Genazzano. Unite your prayer to all who have knelt before the miraculous fresco, and to the whole Church.
• Day 8 — For perseverance. Ask the grace to hold the course once chosen, without turning back.
• Day 9 — At the hour of death. Ask her counsel now and at the last hour, that she lead you home to her Son.

This deepening is a help, not a rule. If it is simpler for you to keep one single intention through all nine days — the way most petitions to Our Lady are made — that is entirely right; name it each day within the prayer and pray with confidence.

The Litany of Our Lady of Good Counsel

This litany is the natural companion to the novena and may be said on any or all of the nine days. To each invocation, respond pray for us.

Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, have mercy on us.
Lord, have mercy on us. Christ, hear us. Christ, graciously hear us.
God the Father of Heaven, have mercy on us.
God the Son, Redeemer of the world, have mercy on us.
God the Holy Ghost, have mercy on us.
Holy Trinity, one God, have mercy on us.

Holy Mary, Mother of Good Counsel, pray for us.
Beloved Daughter of the Eternal Father, pray for us.
August Mother of God the Son, pray for us.
Blessed Spouse of God the Holy Ghost, pray for us.
Living temple of the Most Holy Trinity, pray for us.
Queen of Heaven and earth, pray for us.
Seat of Divine Wisdom, pray for us.
Depositary of the secrets of the Most High, pray for us.
Virgin most prudent, pray for us.

In our doubts and difficulties, pray for us.
In our tribulations and anguish, pray for us.
In our discouragements, pray for us.
In perils and temptations, pray for us.
In all our undertakings, pray for us.
In all our needs, pray for us.
At the hour of death, pray for us.

By thine Immaculate Conception, pray for us.
By thy happy nativity, pray for us.
By thine admirable presentation, pray for us.
By thy glorious Annunciation, pray for us.
By thy charitable Visitation, pray for us.
By thy divine Maternity, pray for us.
By thy holy Purification, pray for us.
By the sorrows and anguish of thy maternal heart, pray for us.
By thy precious death, pray for us.
By thy triumphant Assumption, pray for us.

Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, spare us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, graciously hear us, O Lord.
Lamb of God, who takest away the sins of the world, have mercy on us.

Pray for us, O holy Mother of God,
And obtain for us the gift of good counsel.

Let us pray. Lord Jesus, Author and Dispenser of all good, who in becoming incarnate in the womb of the Blessed Virgin didst communicate to her lights above those of all the heavenly intelligences: grant that, honouring her under the title of Our Lady of Good Counsel, we may ever merit to receive from her goodness the counsels of wisdom and salvation which shall conduct us to the haven of a blessed eternity. Who livest and reignest for ever and ever. Amen.

Variants people look for

Our Lady of Good Counsel novena prayer (short form)

If the full prayer of Pius XII is more than you can keep each day, the devotion may be reduced to its essence: name your need, and pray with the whole heart the single line the litany places on our lips —

Mother of Good Counsel, obtain for us the gift of good counsel: in this doubt, show me the way agreeable to my salvation, and give me the strength to walk it. (Name your request.) Our Lady of Good Counsel, pray for us.

Add an Our Father, a Hail Mary, and a Glory be, and the day's novena is made. God does not measure the prayer by its length but by the trust behind it.

Novena for a specific intention or a hard decision

This is the very intention for which Our Lady of Good Counsel is invoked. Where other devotions ask a healing or a provision, hers asks light — the grace to see, in a genuine fork of the road, which way leads to God. A change of state in life, a vocation to marriage or the cloister, a grave choice for one's children, a matter of conscience where the good is not obvious: these are exactly her province. Name the decision plainly in the prayer, and ask not that God ratify what you have already chosen, but that He make His will known and give you the courage to embrace it. For a soul tangled in a knot it cannot loosen, this novena pairs naturally with Our Lady, Undoer of Knots and with the Litany of Trust.

Our Lady of Good Counsel novena PDF

There is no single official leaflet; the "PDF" that people search for is simply the text above — the daily prayer of Pope Pius XII, the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory be, and the litany. You may copy this page to keep beside you for the nine days, or, better, carry the whole devotion on your phone in the Iter Fidei app, where it is prayed with day-by-day reminders so no day is missed.

Our Lady of Good Counsel church, Sion (novena timings)

Some searches — our lady of good counsel church Sion novena timings, or the public novena kept at Cork — belong to a particular parish and its published schedule, which changes year to year; for those, consult that church directly. The prayer of the novena, however, is the same wherever it is prayed, and is given in full above. Many parishes named for Our Lady of Good Counsel, from Sion to Cork, keep a public novena in the nine days before her feast on 26 April.

How to pray this novena

A novena is nine days of steady, trusting prayer. Begin whenever your need is present; there is no wrong day. To keep the feast, start on 17 April so the ninth day falls on 25 April, the eve of the feast, or on 18 April to close on the feast itself, the 26th.

Pray at a fixed hour each day so the devotion does not slip. Name your intention plainly within the prayer of Pius XII, and where you can, join the novena to Mass, to Holy Communion, or at least to a decade of the Rosary. Above all, pray in the true spirit of counsel: not to bend God's will to a decision already made, but to learn His and to want it — asking less for a particular outcome than for the light to choose well and the strength to hold the course.

The story of Our Lady of Good Counsel

The devotion is fixed on a small, ancient image — a fresco no larger than a sheet of paper and, by every account, no thicker than an eggshell — that hangs in the Augustinian church at Genazzano, a hill town some thirty miles south-east of Rome.

The old church there had fallen into ruin, and a widow of the town, the Augustinian tertiary Blessed Petruccia de Nocera, had spent her small means to begin rebuilding it, trusting that the Blessed Virgin would finish what she could not. She was mocked for it, for the work stalled at the walls and her money ran out. Then, on 25 April 1467, the feast of St Mark, while the town kept festival, a luminous cloud was seen to descend upon an unfinished wall of the church, and when it lifted there was the fresco of the Virgin and her Child — placed against the wall, resting on a ledge scarcely wide enough to hold it, without support or fastening, where it remains to this day.

Two pilgrims lately come from Albania — Giorgio and De Sclavis — recognized the image at once. It was, they said, the same fresco long venerated in the church of Scutari in Albania, which had vanished from its wall as the armies of the Turk closed in on that land — in the last days of the long resistance led by the Christian prince Scanderbeg, whose death the following winter would leave Albania open to the conqueror. The Blessed Virgin, it seemed, had carried her image out of a land about to be overrun, and set it down in Genazzano. Bishops sent by Pope Paul II that same July confirmed the account, and the miracles multiplied — the town's register recorded them by the hundreds within the first year.

From that fresco the title Mother of Good Counsel spread through the Church. Pope Benedict XIV enrolled himself in its confraternity; Pope Pius IX made his own pilgrimage to Genazzano; and in 1903 Pope Leo XIII, who had a lifelong devotion to the image, inserted the invocation Mater Boni Consilii — Mother of Good Counsel into the Litany of Loreto, where it is prayed by the whole Latin Church to this day. Our Lady of Good Counsel is honoured as patroness of Albania, and invoked everywhere as the counsellor of the doubtful and the guide of those who must choose.

Her feast is kept on 26 April. The title itself rests on the oldest Marian instinct of the Church: that the Mother who was called Virgin most prudent, and who told the servants at Cana simply "Do whatever He tells you" (John 2:5), is the surest counsellor a soul can have when it does not know the way. Those drawn to her under this title will find kindred devotion in Our Lady of Perpetual Help and in the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and may wish to entrust their whole cause to her through the Miraculous Medal novena.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the novena to Our Lady of Good Counsel prayed for?

It is prayed above all for good counsel — for light and guidance in a doubt, a decision, or a hard choice where the right path is not clear. Souls turn to Our Lady of Good Counsel over a vocation, a change of state in life, a matter of conscience, or the raising of children. Its object is less a particular outcome than the grace to see God's will and the strength to follow it.

When is the feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel?

The feast falls on 26 April. The nine days of the novena are therefore traditionally kept from 17 to 25 April, closing on the eve of the feast, though the novena may be prayed at any time of year that a need is present.

How long is the novena and what do I pray each day?

It is nine days, prayed once a day. Each day you say the same daily prayer — the prayer of Pope Pius XII, "O Holy Virgin, to whose feet we are led by our anxious uncertainty…" — naming your intention within it, followed by an Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory be, and, if you wish, the Litany of Our Lady of Good Counsel. The text does not change from day to day; only the depth of your prayer does.

Where does the image of Our Lady of Good Counsel come from?

From a miraculous fresco that appeared at Genazzano, Italy, on 25 April 1467, the same image long venerated at Scutari in Albania before it vanished as the Turkish armies advanced. It rests to this day, unsupported, on a narrow ledge in the Augustinian church at Genazzano, where the devotion and its confraternity began.

Is Our Lady of Good Counsel a traditional Catholic devotion?

Yes. It reaches back to the fresco of 1467 and was cherished by Popes Benedict XIV, Pius IX, Leo XIII and Pius XII. The daily prayer given here was composed by Pope Pius XII (who reigned 1939–1958), and the invocation Mother of Good Counsel was added to the Litany of Loreto by Leo XIII in 1903 — so the devotion sits wholly within the traditional treasury of the Church and its 1962 calendar, on which her feast is kept on 26 April.

Is there a Litany of Our Lady of Good Counsel?

Yes, and it is given in full above. It hails Our Lady as Seat of Divine Wisdom, Depositary of the secrets of the Most High, and Virgin most prudent, and begs her intercession in our doubts and difficulties, in perils and temptations, in all our needs, and at the hour of death. It is the natural companion to the novena and may be said on any of the nine days.

Who is Our Lady of Good Counsel the patron of?

She is the patroness of Albania, from whose shrine at Scutari the image is held to have come, and she is invoked as the patron of all who seek guidance and discernment — of those facing decisions, of vocations, of those whose duty it is to counsel others, and of any soul in doubt.

Pray this novena with day-by-day reminders and audio, alongside the Litany of Our Lady of Good Counsel, the Rosary, and the whole treasury of Catholic prayer, in the Iter Fidei app. Download it here.

Sources. Holy Scripture (John 2:1–5; the Sapiential invocations of the Litany drawn from Proverbs 8 and Ecclesiasticus 24); the prayer O Holy Virgin, to whose feet we are led by our anxious uncertainty composed by Pope Pius XII; the Litany of Our Lady of Good Counsel as carried in traditional Catholic prayer-books; the insertion of the invocation Mater Boni Consilii into the Litany of Loreto by Pope Leo XIII (1903); the traditional account of the miraculous fresco of Genazzano (25 April 1467) and of Blessed Petruccia de Nocera; the feast of Our Lady of Good Counsel (26 April).