Novena to Our Lady Of Guadalupe

The novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe is a nine-day prayer to the Mother of God under the title she gave herself on the hill of Tepeyac in 1531, when she left her own image upon the tilma of St Juan Diego. It is prayed most of all in the nine days leading up to her feast on December 12, and brought to her for every need her Mexican and American children lay at her feet: the unborn and the family, the conversion of the Americas, the sick, and the private favours of the heart. Below we give the whole novena — the Memorare of Guadalupe said each day and all nine daily prayers — together with Cardinal Burke's nine-month novena, the form prayed for the unborn, and how to keep the nine days.

When to pray the novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe

The apparitions took place over four days in December 1531 and ended on 12 December, which is her feast. The novena is therefore prayed in the nine days that lead up to it. By the most common reckoning it begins on December 3 and its ninth day falls on December 11, the eve of the feast; some instead pray from December 4 through December 12, so that the last day is the feast itself. Either custom is sound — count nine days so that the novena closes on or just before December 12. If you are new to this kind of prayer, our guide to what is a novena explains why the Church prays in nines.

The full novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe

The novena has two parts said every day: a fixed prayer of remembrance — the Memorare of Our Lady of Guadalupe — and then the prayer proper to that particular day. Each day closes with the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be, and the naming of your own intention.

The Memorare of Our Lady of Guadalupe (said each day)

Remember, O most gracious Virgin of Guadalupe, that in your heavenly apparitions on the mount of Tepeyac, you promised to show your compassion and pity toward all who, loving and trusting you, seek your help and call upon you in their necessities and afflictions. You promised to hear our supplications, to dry our tears, and to give us consolation and relief. Never has it been known that anyone who fled to your protection, implored your help, or sought your intercession, was left unaided.

Inspired by this confidence, we fly unto you, O Mary, ever-Virgin Mother of the true God! Though grieving under the weight of our sins, we come to prostrate ourselves before you, certain that you will deign to fulfil your merciful promises. We are full of hope that, sheltered beneath your shadow and protection, nothing will trouble or afflict us, nor need we fear illness, misfortune, or any other sorrow.

You have chosen to remain with us through your admirable Image, you who are our Mother, our health, and our life. Placing ourselves beneath your maternal gaze, and having recourse to you in all our necessities, we need do nothing more. O Holy Mother of God, despise not our petitions, but in your mercy hear and answer us. Amen.

Day 1 — Gentleness and strength

Dearest Lady of Guadalupe, fruitful Mother of holiness, teach me your ways of gentleness and strength. Hear my humble prayer, offered with heartfelt confidence, to beg this favour... (name your intention).

Day 2 — A lively faith

O Mary, conceived without sin, I come to your throne of grace to share the fervent devotion of your faithful Mexican children who call to you under the glorious title of Guadalupe. Obtain for me a lively faith to do your Son's holy will always: may His will be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Day 3 — Strength amid suffering

O Mary, whose Immaculate Heart was pierced by seven swords of grief, help me to walk valiantly amid the sharp thorns strewn across my pathway. Obtain for me the strength to be a true imitator of you. This I ask you, my dear Mother.

Day 4 — Charity toward others

Dearest Mother of Guadalupe, I beg you for a fortified will to imitate the charity of your divine Son, to always seek the good of others in their need. Grant me this, I humbly ask of you.

Day 5 — Pardon of sins

O most holy Mother, I beg you to obtain for me pardon of all my sins, abundant graces to serve your Son more faithfully from now on, and lastly, the grace to praise Him with you forever in heaven.

Day 6 — For priestly and religious vocations

Mary, Mother of vocations, multiply priestly vocations and fill the earth with religious houses which will be light and warmth for the world, safety in stormy nights. Beg your Son to send us many priests and religious. This we ask of you, O Mother.

Day 7 — For families

O Lady of Guadalupe, we beg you that parents may live a holy life and educate their children in the true faith; that children obey and follow the directions of their parents; that all the members of the family may pray and worship together. This we ask of you, O Mother.

Day 8 — Faithfulness in our duties

With my heart full of the most sincere veneration, I prostrate myself before you, O Mother, to ask you to obtain for me the grace to fulfil the duties of my state in life with faithfulness and constancy.

Day 9 — To see her face in heaven

O God, who under the singular protection of the most holy Virgin Mary, our Mother of Guadalupe, granted your people the fruits of an ardent faith: grant us, your humble servants who rejoice in honouring her today upon earth, the happiness of one day seeing her face to face in heaven. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

After the daily prayer, add the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be, and name once more the favour you seek.

Cardinal Burke's nine-month novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe

Alongside the classic nine-day form, many now ask for the nine-month novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe promoted by Cardinal Raymond Burke, prayed over nine months in imitation of the nine months Our Lord was carried in the womb and joined to an act of consecration. It is a recent devotion — its most widely prayed round ran through 2024, concluding on the feast — but it is wholly orthodox, a fine prayer to keep alongside the traditional novena. We give its history and how to pray it over the nine months in our guide to Cardinal Burke's nine-month novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe. The prayer Cardinal Burke composed runs:

O Virgin Mother of God, we fly to your protection and beg your intercession against the darkness and sin which ever more envelop the world and menace the Church. Your Son, Our Lord Jesus Christ, gave you to us as our Mother as He died on the Cross for our salvation. So too, in 1531, when darkness and sin beset us, He sent you, as Our Lady of Guadalupe, on Tepeyac to lead us to Him Who alone is our light and our salvation.

Through your apparitions on Tepeyac and your abiding presence with us on the miraculous mantle of your messenger, Saint Juan Diego, millions of souls converted to faith in your Divine Son.

Through this novena and our consecration to you, we humbly implore your intercession for our daily conversion of life to Him, and the conversion of the millions more who do not yet believe in Him. In our homes and in our nation, lead us to Him Who alone wins the victory over sin and darkness in us and in the world.

Unite our hearts to your Immaculate Heart, that they may find their true and lasting home in the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus. Ever guide us along the pilgrimage of life to our eternal home with Him. So may our hearts, one with yours, always trust in God's promise of salvation, in His never-failing mercy toward all who turn to Him with a humble and contrite heart.

Through this novena and our consecration to you, O Virgin of Guadalupe, lead all souls in America and throughout the world to your Divine Son, in Whose name we pray. Amen.

The nine-month form is a longer school of the same trust. Consecration to Our Lady is nothing new in the Church's treasury; those drawn to it may also pray the novena to the Immaculate Heart.

The novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe for the unborn and for life

Of all the titles of Our Lady, Guadalupe is uniquely the patroness of the unborn, for on the tilma she appears as a woman with child — girded with the high black maternity sash of expectant native women, and bearing over her womb the four-petalled nahui ollin, the Aztec sign of new life. She came to a people who offered human sacrifice, and under her mantle those sacrifices ceased. For this reason she is the great intercessor of the pro-life cause and the refuge of mothers.

To pray the novena for the unborn, keep the nine days above and name that intention throughout — for an end to the killing of the innocent, for a child in the womb, or for a mother in distress. It is fitting to add the petition:

O Lady of Guadalupe, mystical Rose, intercede for the Church, protect the Holy Father, help all who invoke you in their necessities. Since you are the ever-Virgin Mary and Mother of the true God, obtain for us from your most holy Son the grace of keeping our faith, sweet hope in the midst of the bitterness of life, burning charity, and the precious gift of final perseverance. Amen.

Those praying for a child of their own may join this to a novena for fertility and to Our Lady of La Leche; those labouring for the defence of life may join it to a Respect Life novena.

The novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe for the dead

Our Lady of Guadalupe is also a sure patroness of the souls in Purgatory. To pray the novena for one who has died, keep the nine days above with that soul named throughout, and add the novena for the dead or the De profundis (Psalm 129), begging her to present that soul to her Son and obtain its swift release into the beatific vision she promises on the ninth day.

The Guadalupe rosary novena and chaplet

Because Guadalupe is above all a devotion of the Rosary, many pray a rosary novena to her: a Rosary on each of the nine days, offered for the intention, with the daily prayers added at the end. There is also a small chaplet of Our Lady of Guadalupe, meditating on the four apparitions to Juan Diego. See our guide on how to pray the Rosary.

The novena in Spanish

Our Lady of Guadalupe is La Morenita, Mother of the Mexican and Latin American peoples, and countless faithful pray this novena in Spanish (novena a Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe). It is the same devotion; the Iter Fidei app carries it in Spanish, English, and the Church's own Latin.

How to pray the novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe

Each day, pray the Memorare of Guadalupe, then the prayer proper to that day, then the Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be, naming your intention. Pray at a fixed hour, from the heart, and where you can join the novena to Holy Mass or to the Rosary. Above all, ask in submission: the novena is not a lever that moves God's hand, but a child's trust that the Mother who said "Am I not here, I who am your Mother?" will obtain what is truly best.

The story of Our Lady of Guadalupe

In December of 1531, only ten years after the fall of the Aztec empire, the Blessed Virgin appeared to a poor native convert, Juan Diego, on the hill of Tepeyac outside Mexico City. She was, by her own words, "the ever-Virgin Holy Mary, Mother of the true God through whom one lives," and she asked that a church be built on that spot, where she would show her compassion to all who sought her.

Juan Diego carried her request to the Bishop of Mexico, the Franciscan Juan de Zumárraga, who asked for a sign. When Juan Diego's uncle fell gravely ill, he tried to avoid Our Lady out of haste and shame; but she met him on the road with the words that have consoled her children ever since: "Am I not here, I who am your Mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection?" She told him his uncle was already healed, and sent him to gather roses — Castilian roses, blooming out of season on the frozen, barren hilltop. She arranged them herself in his tilma, his cloak of coarse cactus fibre.

When Juan Diego opened the tilma before the bishop on 12 December 1531, the roses cascaded to the floor, and upon the cloak was found, not painted by any human hand, the image of Our Lady as she had appeared — a young woman with child, clothed with the sun, standing upon the moon, her mantle strewn with stars. That same tilma, which by nature should have decayed within decades, hangs to this day above the altar of the basilica of Guadalupe, its image unexplained by science. In the years that followed, some nine million natives were baptised, and the human sacrifices of the old religion ceased.

Juan Diego, long venerated by the faithful of Mexico, was beatified in 1990 and canonized in 2002. Our Lady of Guadalupe herself was proclaimed Patroness of the Americas and is honoured also as Patroness of Mexico, and her feast is kept on 12 December. She is the model and refuge of mothers, the intercessor of the unborn, and the mother who converts a whole people not by conquest but by the gift of her own image. Those who love her under this title often also seek her as Our Lady of Fatima and under the Miraculous Medal, where she comes again as the woman clothed with the sun.

Frequently Asked Questions

When does the novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe start?

It is prayed in the nine days before her feast on December 12. Most commonly it begins on December 3, so that the ninth day falls on December 11, the eve of the feast; some pray it December 4 through 12, closing on the feast itself. Both are correct — count back nine days from the feast. You may also pray it any time of year for a particular need.

How do you pray a novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe?

Each day for nine days, pray the Memorare of Our Lady of Guadalupe, then the prayer proper to that day, then an Our Father, Hail Mary, and Glory Be, naming your intention. Pray at a set time, join it to the Rosary or to Mass where you can, and ask in trust and submission to God's will.

What is the nine-month novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe?

It is a devotion promoted by Cardinal Raymond Burke, prayed over nine months — in imitation of the nine months Our Lord was carried in Mary's womb — and joined to an act of consecration for the conversion of the Americas and the defence of the Church. It is a recent form; its prayer is given in full above.

Is there a novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe for the unborn?

Yes. Because on the tilma Our Lady appears as a woman with child and is honoured as patroness of the unborn, many pray the nine-day novena for the protection of unborn life, for a child in the womb, or for a mother in distress — using the same prayers above and naming that intention throughout.

Can I pray the novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe in Spanish?

Yes — she is the Mother of the Mexican and Latin American peoples, and the novena a Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe is prayed in Spanish the world over. It is the same devotion in either language; the Iter Fidei app carries it in Spanish, English, and Latin.

Is there a printable PDF of the Guadalupe novena?

The complete text is given above — the Memorare of Guadalupe and all nine daily prayers — and may be copied to keep beside you for the nine days. The Iter Fidei app carries the whole novena with audio, so it can be prayed from a phone.

Who is Our Lady of Guadalupe the patron of?

She is the Patroness of the Americas and of Mexico, and, because she appears on the tilma as a woman with child, the patroness of the unborn and of expectant mothers. She is invoked for the conversion of the Americas, for families, for the sick, and for the souls of the dead.

Pray this novena with day-by-day reminders and audio, in Latin and your own language, in the Iter Fidei app. Download it here.

Sources. The traditional account of the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe to St Juan Diego at Tepeyac, December 1531, and the words of Our Lady ("Am I not here, I who am your Mother?"; "the ever-Virgin Holy Mary, Mother of the true God"); the Memorare of Our Lady of Guadalupe and the traditional nine-day novena prayers; the prayer of the Nine-Month Novena to Our Lady of Guadalupe composed by Cardinal Raymond Burke; Psalm 129 (De profundis); the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe (12 December).