Novena Prayer Traditions,Thriving,and Well-being: A Survey of Churchgoers in an Indian City

Abstract

Novena (Latin: novem) is an ancient Christian tradition of devotional praying repeated for nine successive days or weeks. There are multiple Christian denominations in contemporary India, with several churches having popular Novena praying traditions. This article is a single-group pretest–posttest survey on well-being and thriving (or flourishing and prospering) outcomes of Novena-goers of various churches in an Indian city. Results suggested that there was a statistically significant improvement in the post-test well-being (d = 0.90, 95% confidence interval [CI] = [0.82, 0.99]) and thriving scores (d = 0.93, 95% CI = [0.84, 1.02]}) of Novena-goers. Results of the logistic regression analyses indicated that odds ratios of the well-being and thriving outcomes were in favor of female Novena-goers, those with higher formal education (postgraduate or professional degrees), and currently married or never married. This was in comparison with male Novena-goers, those with lower formal education (high school equivalent or college degree), and widowed or divorced. For the disciplinary domain of psychology and theology, results foreground petitionary Novena praying as bolstering psychological resources by purposefully redirecting individual consciousness toward a reality wherein communion with the divine is realizable.