From the archive record
Devotees gather for the flag hoisting on the first day of 'Novena' at St Mary's Basilica in Bangalore, Karnataka, India. A novena is an institutional act of religious pious devotion in the Roman Catholic Church, often consisting of private or public prayers repeated for nine successive days in belief of obtaining special intercessory graces. The prayers are often derived from devotional prayer books, or consist of the recitation of the rosary (a "rosary novena"), or of short prayers through the day. Novena prayers are customarily printed in small booklets, and the novena is often dedicated to a specific angel, saint, a specific Marian title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, or it invokes one of the personages of the Holy Trinity. Within the Roman Catholic discipline, novena prayers for public us