St Sebastian Novena: Full 9-Day Prayer Text

The novena to St Sebastian is a nine-day prayer to the Roman soldier-martyr whom the Church has invoked for sixteen centuries against plague, epidemic, violence and war, and who is likewise the patron of soldiers, of athletes and archers, and of all who must hold fast under trial. We beg his intercession for the healing of the sick, for protection of home and country, and above all for the grace to remain faithful to our baptism when fidelity is costly. It is traditionally begun on 12 January and closed on 20 January, his feast in the 1962 calendar, but may be prayed whenever a need presses.

Below is the full text as the Iter Fidei app prays it: the daily prayer, a meditation and a proper petition for every day, the Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be, and the closing versicle with the authentic collect of the Roman Missal for Ss. Fabian and Sebastian and the old prayer against plague, famine and war.

How the Novena Is Prayed Each Day

Make the sign of the Cross, recollect thyself a moment, then say the daily prayer, which is recited on each of the nine days before the meditation proper to the day.

In the name of the Father,
and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen.

The Daily Prayer to St Sebastian

Glorious martyr St Sebastian, soldier of Christ and model of the Christian, we come this day to implore thine intercession before the throne of the Lord Jesus, our Saviour, for whom thou gavest thy life.

Thou who didst live the faith and persevere unto the end, pray to Jesus for us, that we may be witnesses of the love of God. Thou who didst hope steadfastly in the words of Jesus, pray to Him for us, that He may increase our hope in the resurrection. Thou who didst live charity toward thy brethren, pray to Jesus, that He may increase our love toward all.

And at the last, glorious martyr St Sebastian, protect us against plague, famine, and war; defend our harvests and our flocks, which are gifts of God for our good and for the good of all. And defend us from sin, which is the greatest of all evils. Amen.

St Sebastian Novena — Day 1: The Faith of St Sebastian

St Sebastian lived as a fervent Christian in the midst of a pagan army and a court that persecuted Christ. Neither the honour of arms nor the favour of the emperor drew him away from the faith received at his baptism; hidden beneath the soldier's cloak, he confessed God in the secret of his heart before confessing Him before the mighty.

O glorious St Sebastian, who wast so valiant to live as a Christian in a place so hostile to the faith, obtain for us of God, through Jesus Christ, the grace of an ardent faith, courageous and undaunted in trials, that, united to Christ by grace, we may bear witness to what we professed at our baptism.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day
our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive
those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace;
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.

Day 2: The Charity of St Sebastian

St Sebastian used his rank not for ambition but to serve in secret the imprisoned confessors, to comfort the condemned at the hour of death, and to heal the sick. By his word and his wonders he converted many — Zoe, who recovered her speech, her husband Nicostratus, the prefect Chromatius cured of the gout: his whole faith was changed into charity toward the poor and the suffering.

O glorious St Sebastian, who leavest us so fair an example of courage and of charity, obtain for us of God the succour of the poor and the forsaken, and for all Christians, and chiefly for us who honour thee in this novena, the grace of an ardent love and a true compassion toward them that suffer.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day
our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive
those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace;
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.

Day 3: Fortitude in Trial

When the brothers Marcus and Marcellianus, on the eve of their martyrdom, were about to yield to the tears of their kin, St Sebastian exhorted them with such ardour that he confirmed them in the faith. He is the model of those who welcome trial without being cast down, and who lift up the courage of their faltering brethren.

O glorious martyr St Sebastian, living example of faith, charity, fortitude, loyalty, and fidelity, obtain for us of God the grace to welcome with joy the adversities of life, and to uphold those whom trial makes to waver.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day
our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive
those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace;
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.

Day 4: Fidelity to Baptism

Discovered as a Christian, the saint denied not the faith to save his life: he chose the archers' arrows rather than betray the promises of his baptism. Bound to the stake, he made of his pierced body a confession of Christ, loving better to die faithful than to live forsworn.

O glorious martyr St Sebastian, who, to keep thyself faithful to the faith of thy baptism, didst face the cruellest persecution and shed thy blood, obtain for us the grace to remain faithful unto the end to the promises of our baptism.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day
our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive
those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace;
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.

Day 5: Against Violence and Fear

Twice the saint was given over to a violent death — first to the arrows, then to the cudgels. Therefore he is invoked by all who live under the threat of fear and aggression, and who beg for peace in the midst of a world grown cruel.

St Sebastian, thou who wast smitten with such great sufferings and twice the victim of violence, look upon our world so violent, so hostile, and so perilous; have pity on us all, unceasingly troubled by fear: succour us in the hours of anguish, and guard our homes and our lives from the violence of evil men.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day
our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive
those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace;
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.

Day 6: For the Fields and the Flocks

The country folk took him for their patron, for through the centuries the ceasing of plagues that struck down men and beasts was ascribed to St Sebastian. He watches over the labour of the fields and over the flocks, gifts of God for the good of all.

Mighty St Sebastian, in whom we own a singular kindness toward all who toil at the hard labour of the earth and among the beasts, we pray thee with confidence for the herdsmen and the ploughmen, for their flocks and their harvests: obtain of God rain for the parched lands, drive from all the flocks sickness and death, and grant that never may bread and health be wanting to them that earn their food by the sweat of their brow.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day
our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive
those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace;
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.

Day 7: For Homeland and Peace

Captain of the Praetorian Guard, the saint was a soldier before he was a martyr. The Church gives him for patron of soldiers and invokes him against the scourge of war, that the nations may be kept and peace obtained.

Glorious martyr St Sebastian, valiant soldier, example of devotion and of heroism, obtain for our country the defence of Heaven in the hardest hours, and for the whole world obtain the grace of peace.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day
our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive
those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace;
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.

Day 8: Against Epidemics, for Health

Pierced by arrows and healed by St Irene, he became for the Christian people the heavenly physician who heals the wounds of soul and body. About the year 680 a pestilence ravaging Pavia ceased after an altar was raised to him; ever since, the West invokes him against every contagion and every ill of body and spirit.

St Sebastian, who by the torment inflicted upon thee didst become the physician that heals the wounds of soul and body, keep from us epidemics and contagious diseases, the pains of body and of spirit, and obtain for me the grace I ardently desire:

Here name, with humility and confidence, the grace thou askest of St Sebastian — the healing of a sick one, the end of a trial, the protection of a household — surrendering it to the will of God.

Present my prayer before the throne of the Lord, who alone knoweth what is good for my salvation; and be it done unto me according to His holy will. Amen.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day
our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive
those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace;
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.

Day 9: Zeal and Witness

Able to flee after his healing, the saint chose instead to present himself once more before the emperor to denounce the cruelties done against the Christians. He sealed with his blood the witness of the faith, and stands as the model of apostolic zeal that is not ashamed of the Gospel.

O glorious martyr St Sebastian, who wast a lover of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and a valiant soldier of the faith, raise up in our community zealous missionaries of the Kingdom of God, that Christ may ever be better known and loved.

Our Father, who art in heaven,
hallowed be Thy name.
Thy kingdom come.
Thy will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
Give us this day
our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive
those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil.
Amen.

Hail Mary, full of grace;
the Lord is with thee.
Blessed art thou amongst women,
and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus.
Holy Mary, Mother of God,
pray for us sinners,
now and at the hour of our death.
Amen.

Glory be to the Father, and to the Son,
and to the Holy Ghost.
As it was in the beginning,
is now, and ever shall be,
world without end.
Amen.

Closing the Novena

Each day may be closed — and the ninth certainly should be — with the versicle and the collect the Roman Missal appoints for the feast of Ss. Fabian and Sebastian on 20 January.

V. Pray for us, O holy Sebastian.
R. That we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.

Let us pray.

Look, we beseech Thee, O Lord, upon our weakness; and because the weight of our own deeds bears heavily upon us, may the glorious intercession of Thy blessed martyrs Fabian and Sebastian protect us. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.

In Latin, as it stands in the Missal:

Respice, quaesumus, Domine, ad nostram infirmitatem: et quia pondus propriae actionis gravat, beatorum Martyrum tuorum Fabiani et Sebastiani intercessio gloriosa nos protegat. Per Dominum nostrum Iesum Christum Filium tuum, qui tecum vivit et regnat in unitate Spiritus Sancti Deus, per omnia saecula saeculorum. Amen.

Those who wish may close with the prayer against plague, famine, and war, the heart of this ancient devotion.

Prayer Against Plague, Famine and War

Almighty and eternal God, who by the intercession of St Sebastian, Thy glorious martyr, didst comfort the imprisoned Christians and deliver whole cities from the contagion of the plague, hear our humble supplications: succour us in our necessities, relieve us of our anguish, revive the captives, heal the sick, and preserve us from contagion. By the merits of St Sebastian, hear us, O Lord. Amen.

In the name of the Father,
and of the Son,
and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen.

Praying the St Sebastian Novena for a Particular Intention

Nothing must be altered in the text: your intention enters on the eighth day, where the saint is asked outright to "obtain for me the grace I ardently desire" and where you name it in your own words. Hold the same intention through all nine days — that steadiness is the whole point of a nine-day prayer.

Against pestilence and for the sick. This is the oldest use of the devotion and the reason it exists. Day 8 and the closing prayer against plague, famine and war carry it: pray them for a contagious illness in the house, for a diagnosis awaited. It pairs with our prayers for the sick and with the novena to St Roch, the other great plague-patron of the Christian West.

For athletes. Day 3 (fortitude in trial) and Day 5 (against fear) are the athlete's days — for a competition, an injury, a season of discouragement.

For soldiers, police and those in danger. Day 5 and Day 7 are theirs: protection of homes and of country, and peace for the whole world.

For fidelity and perseverance. Day 1, Day 4 and Day 9 form a small novena of their own for anyone tempted to hide the faith at work, in an army, in a hostile family: the very situation Sebastian lived in for years.

Is There a St Sebastian Novena PDF, Audio or Short Version?

Three requests come up constantly, and each deserves an honest answer.

A PDF. This page is the complete text — nothing is withheld. Print it, or use your browser's "Print → Save as PDF" to make your own booklet: that is the most reliable St Sebastian novena PDF there is, because you can see exactly what is in it. Be wary of circulating PDFs that swap the Missal collect for a paraphrase, or that add days.

Audio, mp3 and hymns. The devotion has real sung traditions — the Brazilian Novena de São Sebastião, the Konkani and Malayalam hymns of Kerala, the processional songs of Goa and Kanjoor. Those are hymns around the novena, not the novena itself. For a spoken day-by-day, the Iter Fidei app reads each day aloud.

A short form. There is no authorised abridgement. If time is short, pray the daily prayer, the proper petition of the day, and a single Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be — that is the irreducible core. What is not permitted is dropping days: nine is the number, in imitation of the nine days the Apostles and Our Lady spent in the Cenacle, as we explain in our guide to what a novena is.

How to Pray It: Start Date, the Nine Days, the Feast

Begin on 12 January and the ninth day falls on 20 January, the feast of Ss. Fabian and Sebastian in the 1962 Roman calendar — a date the Church has kept since the fourth century, the Depositio martyrum of 354 already recording it. That is the classic arrangement, and the one this text assumes.

But the novena is not chained to January: it has always been prayed when the need appeared — at the outbreak of an epidemic, before a surgery, during a drought. If you are praying toward a particular day, count back nine days from it and begin there.

A few practical counsels, the same we give for any of the Church's novenas and devotions:

• Pray at the same hour each day. The enemy of a novena is not unbelief but forgetfulness.
• Keep the whole rite: sign of the Cross, daily prayer, meditation, petition, Our Father, Hail Mary and Glory Be. The meditation is not filler; it is what turns asking into friendship with the saint.
• If you miss a day, do not scruple and do not start over. Pick up where you left off and add the missed day at the end.
• Crown it if you can with Mass and Holy Communion on the ninth day or on the feast.

Who Was St Sebastian? A Life Read Through the 1962 Lens

The acts of his martyrdom, long attributed without adequate reason to St Ambrose, are the source of nearly everything the Christian people know of him; Butler transmits them, and notes that scholars judge them a pious narrative written perhaps before the end of the fifth century rather than a court record. What can be safely asserted is that Sebastian was a Roman martyr, venerated at Milan already in the time of St Ambrose, and buried on the Appian Way in the cemetery ad catacumbas, where his basilica stands. That the details reach us through a passio rather than a notary's minute takes nothing from the cult: the Church's veneration of this martyr is older than the story told about him.

The story itself, as Butler tells it, runs so. Born at Narbonne in Gaul of Milanese parents and brought up in Milan, Sebastian was averse by nature to a military life; he entered the army under the Emperor Carinus about 283 precisely so that he might assist the confessors and martyrs in their sufferings without arousing suspicion. There followed the conversions the second day recalls — Zoe, six years dumb, given back her speech at the sign of the cross; her husband Nicostratus; Chromatius, governor of Rome, cured of the gout, who was baptized with his son Tiburtius, freed his prisoners and his slaves, and resigned the prefecture.

Diocletian, admiring his bearing and ignorant of his faith, made him captain of a company of the Praetorian Guard. When the persecution grew fiercer, Pope St Caius judged that Sebastian should not follow the converts into safety in Campania but stay at the post of danger. One by one his converts went before him to death; then Sebastian himself was impeached before Diocletian, who reproached him bitterly with ingratitude and gave him over to Mauritanian archers. His body was pierced through and he was left for dead. Irene, the widow of St Castulus, coming to bury him, found him alive and took him to her lodgings, where he recovered — and refused to flee. He deliberately took his station on a staircase where the emperor was to pass, and there denounced to his face the cruelties done against the Christians. That freedom of language, from a man supposed dead, left Diocletian speechless a moment; then he ordered him beaten to death with cudgels and his body thrown into the common sewer. A lady called Lucina, admonished by the martyr in a vision, buried him secretly ad catacumbas.

Two things in that life bear on why we pray this novena. He chose his profession as a means of charity: everything he became — soldier, captain, courtier — he became in order to reach prisoners. And he was martyred twice over, consenting to the second. Any man might endure arrows he cannot escape; it took another order of courage to walk back up the staircase. That is what makes him, among the saints, the particular patron of perseverance — and why Day 9 asks not for relief but for zeal.

As for the arrows, they do not appear in his early images at all: a mosaic of about 680 in San Pietro in Vincoli shows him bearded, holding a martyr's crown. Some have supposed the plague-patronage arose from the ancient image of pestilence as the arrows of an angry god; Father Delehaye judged more soberly that some cessation of plague, on an occasion when the martyr had been invoked, was enough to begin the tradition. Either way the patronage came first, and the arrows in art — with the archers' and the athletes' patronage — came after it.

He is honoured on 20 January together with Pope St Fabian, whom a dove designated for the papacy about 236 and who died a martyr under Decius in 250; Fabian's body was afterwards translated to the basilica of St Sebastian, which is why the Roman Missal's collect still names them in one breath.

Frequently Asked Questions

What is the St Sebastian novena?

It is a nine-day prayer to St Sebastian, martyr, in which each day meditates on one virtue of his life — faith, charity, fortitude, fidelity to baptism, courage against violence, care for the fields, love of country, health, zeal — and asks his intercession for a particular need, closing with the collect of his feast from the Roman Missal.

When should the novena to St Sebastian be prayed?

Traditionally from 12 to 20 January, ending on his feast in the 1962 calendar. It may also be prayed at any time of year for a pressing need — an epidemic, an illness, a war, a family in danger — by counting back nine days from the day toward which you are praying.

What is the St Sebastian novena for?

Chiefly against plague, epidemic and contagious disease; also for soldiers, athletes and archers, for protection against violence, for harvests and flocks, for peace, for a holy death, and for perseverance under trial.

Is there a St Sebastian novena prayer in English?

Yes — the entire text above is in English, and it is the same text the Iter Fidei app prays. The devotion is prayed in many tongues: Portuguese (Novena de São Sebastião), Spanish (novena a San Sebastián mártir), and Tamil, Hindi, Konkani and Malayalam in India, where his cult is strong. The day structure and the collect are the same in all of them.

Why is St Sebastian invoked against pestilence?

Because the West's experience said so before the West could explain why. About 680 a plague at Pavia ceased after an altar was raised to him in the church of St Peter in Chains, and Rome, Milan and Lisbon later attributed the ending of their epidemics to his intercession. Art then read his arrows as the darts of contagion turned aside — a fitting image, though the patronage came first.

Why is St Sebastian the patron saint of athletes?

Because he was a soldier of the Praetorian Guard whose bodily endurance under two executions became proverbial, and because the archers who shot him made him patron of archery and thence of the games. The St Sebastian novena for athletes asks not for victory but for the martyr's own virtue: constancy when the body fails and courage when fear presses — Days 3 and 5.

Can I pray this novena for someone who is sick?

Yes, and it is its most ancient use. Name the sick person on the eighth day, where the text leaves room for your intention, and keep that intention through all nine days. Many join it to the prayer for healing or offer their Communion on the ninth day for the same person.

Is there a plenary indulgence attached to this novena?

No indulgence is attached to this particular nine-day text. Indulgences are granted to specified prayers under the usual conditions and are listed in the Raccolta; you may of course gain the ordinary indulgences attached to the Our Father or the Hail Mary prayed within it. The absence of one changes nothing of the novena's value: it is a prayer of confidence and perseverance, and God answers in His hour and according to what is good for the soul.

Pray the St Sebastian novena with day-by-day reminders and the full text read aloud in the Iter Fidei app. Download it here.

Sources. Holy Scripture (Douay-Rheims); Butler's Lives of the Saints (20 January, Ss. Fabian and Sebastian); the Acta Sanctorum, 20 January; the Roman Missal and the Roman Martyrology, feast of Ss. Fabian and Sebastian; the traditional novena to St Sebastian, adapted from the Novena de São Sebastião; the traditional prayer against plague, famine and war.