Jesus, Take Care of Everything!
Fr. John Riccardo
September 15, 2021
A few years ago, I was visiting a classmate of mine and in the sacristy at his parish I came across a simple little prayer card with a novena on it. I picked it up and asked him what it was and where he got it. He told me his spiritual director had put him on to it and that he had found it immensely helpful. I took a copy and put it in one of my prayer books and promptly forgot about it.
Full disclosure: I’ve never been much for novenas. I think part of the reason for that was the family I grew up in, which was intensely devout without being intensely devotional. My father was Catholic, my mom was Methodist (until shortly after the election of Pope John Paul II), and three of my siblings had experienced life-changing encounters with Jesus outside the Catholic Church. As a result, while our home was one where I experienced “the normalcy of faith,” that faith was deeply biblical, spontaneous, and more often than not from the heart as opposed to something that emerged from prayer books. Now, to be clear, I’ve grown in immense appreciation of and love for the devotions of the Church over the past several decades, and they are now a regular part of my life, but this took time, and until as recently as last year, novenas were still largely absent from my life.
Not anymore.
About a year after I came across that novena in my friend’s sacristy, we were having a conversation with an archbishop. He was describing for us a profound transformation he had been experiencing over the previous number of months, in large part due to a simple novena that he had come across. He went on to say that he had incorporated this novena into his daily prayer in an ongoing fashion and guessed he would probably pray it for the rest of his life. Having known this man for quite some time, I was more than intrigued to hear him say this. As he went on to describe the prayer, it was clear it was the same one that I had packed up inside one of my prayer books. As we hung up the phone, I commenced a frantic search to find not only that novena but the prayer book that was hiding it within. Thanks be to God, I found it (thank you, St. Anthony!).
The novena is known as “The Surrender Novena,” and it was given by Jesus to an Italian priest, Don Delindo Ruotolo, a contemporary of Padre Pio, and now recognized by the Church as a Servant of God. The novena starts each day with a very short reflection from Jesus, and then ends with this simple prayer repeated ten times: “O Jesus, I surrender myself to you. Take care of everything!” It’s astounding to me how this most basic of prayers, offered to the Lord with confidence and trust, is able to bring such immense comfort and peace—things which seem to be in short supply right now as we look out on the world and the Church.
In his spiritual classic, Into Your Hands, Father: Abandoning Ourselves to the God Who Loves Us, Wilfrid Stinissen writes,
“The Gospels and spiritual literature point out various practices of importance on the journey to God. We are told to deny ourselves, forgive one another, carry our cross, fast and give alms. We must also love our neighbor, pray with others and in private, bring our troubles to the Lord and be peacemakers. In spiritual reading we are instructed about balanced asceticism, the Mass readings of the day tell of prayer, and the retreat master speaks about love. We are pulled in different directions, and instead of finding peace, we become restless. What we need most is a central idea, something so basic and comprehensive that it encompasses everything else. In my opinion that central idea is surrender…The life of Jesus shows that it is acceptable to choose surrender as a unifying idea. According to the Letter to the Hebrews, he says upon entering the world, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God’ as it is written of me in the scroll of the book’ (Heb 10:7), and he finishes his life with an act of absolute surrender, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’ (Luke 23:46). Abandonment is truly the alpha and omega in his life.”
As we continue to navigate our way through a pandemic, economic struggles, foreign and domestic challenges, our children wandering away from the faith, and a myriad of other issues in the country and the Church, there is a constant temptation to pre-occupy ourselves with worry and fret. I know I all too easily fall prey to these. If you’re looking for a way to begin, or end, the day in peace, I cannot recommend “The Surrender Novena” highly enough—or Stinissen’s book, for that matter. Jesus told us, “In the world you will have trouble. But take heart; I have conquered the world!” (John 16:33).