Grandparents Novena – Begins Sunday, 13 September

 

The Catholic Grandparents Association invites Grandparents, families and friends to join us for The Grandparents Novena, presented in collaboration with Ascension Press.

 A Letter from Catherine 

A message from Catherine Wiley Founder, Catholic Grandparents Association  ·  12 September 2026

A novena you can pray for the rest of your life

My very dear Friends,

I am writing with something I have wanted to give you for a very long time.

The Catholic Grandparents Association has entered into its first collaboration with Ascension Press in the United States, and together we have brought out The Grandparents Novena. It begins tomorrow, Sunday 13 September — Grandparents Day in America — and runs for nine days. You may join it on any day you like.

But I want to say plainly what it really is, because the nine days are only the beginning of it. This is a novena you can pray at any time, for the rest of your life. In a hard week. Before an operation. When a grandchild has drifted away from the faith and you do not know what else to do. After a death in the family. It carries the whole family in it — those who are here, those who are still to come, and those who have gone before us.

It grew out of twenty-five years of listening to grandparents tell me what they carry and how alone they often feel with it. Something of this kind has been needed for a long time.

Ascension wrote and recorded it as audio, and it is free. There is nothing to read and nothing complicated to do. A grandmother who cannot see well, or who is frail, or who is simply tired at the end of the day, can sit down and listen. That was deliberate, and it matters more than anything else about it.

You can find it here: app.ascensionpress.com

I want to say how grateful we are to Ascension Press. They have given this their whole care and skill and made it freely available to anyone who wants it, and we could not have done it without them.

May I ask two things of you. Pray it — and pray it more than once, a couple of times a year, whenever your family needs it. And pass it on. Send it to another grandparent. Put it in your parish bulletin, your newsletter, your prayer group, your school. A grandmother somewhere is carrying something today that she has told nobody about, and this was made for her.

I am attaching our poster, and Pope Benedict XVI’s Prayer for Grandparents, which he wrote at our request and gave to the Association. The Prayer is woven through the novena itself, so the two belong together.

Thank you, as ever, for all you do for grandparents and for families.

Saints Joachim and Anne, pray for us.

Passing on the Faith and Keeping Prayer at the Heart of Family Life