The faithful throughout the eight-county Diocese of Cleveland are invited to participate in the new session of Nine Nights of Night Prayer. Eight churches across the diocese will open their doors at 8 p.m. each night Nov. 30 through Dec. 8 to offer a time of night prayer.
Participating parishes for this round are:
- Our Lady of Victory Parish, 73 North Ave., Tallmadge
- Our Lady of the Lake Parish, 19951 Lake Shore Blvd., Euclid
- St. Mary of the Falls Parish, 25615 Bagley Road, Olmsted Falls
- St. Peter Parish, 3655 Oberlin Ave., Lorain
- St. Patrick Parish, 3602 Bridge Ave., Cleveland
- St. Cyprian Parish, 4223 Middle Ridge Road, Perry
- SS. Cosmas and Damian Parish, 10419 Ravenna Road, Twinsburg
- Our Lady of Grace Parish, 1088 Ridge Road, Hinckley
“This is now the fifth round of Nine Nights of Night Prayer, and each round more and more people are participating,” said Father Damian Ference, vicar for evangelization and director of the diocesan Parish Life and Special Ministries Office. “For parishes, it’s a nice way to invite people back to Church, or to come to their church for the first time. Even parishioners who come to Mass regularly have found this new (old really) form of prayer to be edifying.”
Father Ference said the Liturgy of Hours, of which Night Prayer is a part, is an important aspect of our Catholic tradition. “It’s nice to introduce it to a new generation,” he added.
“The best part about the Advent round of Nine Nights of Night Prayer is that it’s dark outside and there’s something about praying in a warm church on a cold December night,” Father Ference said.
The Nine Nights of Night Prayer are scheduled around Marian holy days, he noted. This session ends on the feast of the Immaculate Conception, Dec. 8. The next round will conclude with the feast of the Annunciation.
Traditionally, each round of Nine Nights of Night Prayer ends with an ice cream social featuring a specially created flavor. As for this session, “I want to call it (the ice cream) ‘Bernadette’s Friend.’ If you recall, Our Lady asked Bernadette to dig a well. In the ‘Song of Bernadette,’ the film shows this young peasant woman digging in the dirt and looking foolish. But soon that foolishness turned to wonder as she hit the spring. The ice cream will look like dirt,” Father Ference said. “The base will be chocolate and peanut butter with dark chocolate chunks mixed in.”
In the last round of Night Prayer, Deacon George Malec, parish life coordinator of St. Anthony of Padua Parish in Fairport Harbor which was one of the participating sites, said he wasn’t sure what to expect. He was pleasantly surprised with a strong turnout, including nearly 100 people one night.
Each parish is encouraged to add its own touches to the events such as music or using different presiders each night.
“We had a thunderstorm one night,” Deacon Malec recalled, which caused a sporadic power outage, “But turnout was still good,” he added.
At Our Lady of Angels Parish in Cleveland’s West Park neighborhood, administrator Father Rob Ramser called Nine Nights “a huge success.” He began his assignment there just a few weeks before the last round of Night Prayer began and he wasn’t sure what to expect.
“I was pleased with the mix of parishioners and non-parishioners who attended. We had some people who had been away from the Church for a while and some who wanted to learn more about the Litany of Hours,” he said. He and Father Ference said the Night Prayer events are another evangelization tool to help draw people back to the Church.
“The challenge is to trust. I did, and God delivered,” Father Ramser said, referring to the success of Night Prayer at his parish.
Night prayer lasts about 15 minutes and is an easy way to draw people in to the church building and into prayer, they added.
Father Bill Thaden, pastor of Sacred Heart Chapel in Lorain, said his parish also hosted Night Prayer during the last round. His parish has a heavy Hispanic population and offered Night Prayer in Spanish.
“It was the first experience with Night Prayer for many of those who attended,” Father Thaden said. “Some people told me they plan to continue it on their own. The atmosphere was powerful and sacred,” he said, recalling the prayer sessions. “We tried to keep it what the Church designed it to be and people felt the calming effect.”
Father Ference invites everyone to try attending a session of night prayer at the same church or at a different one each night.
“Join us in being nurtured with sacred Scripture and refreshed by the loving presence of God,” he added.