Fourteen Holy Helpers Lite: Catholic Novena and Prayers

The Fourteen Holy Helpers are a group of saints from the early Church who were prayed to as intercessors against specific ailments — toothache, plague, headache, sudden death — particularly during the Middle Ages. This app collects the novena to those fourteen saints, written by Rev. Bonaventure Hammer, OFM.

You get the novena prayers, a brief life of each of the Fourteen Helpers, and the particular intercession each one is associated with. The app walks you through the nine-day novena, day by day. There is also a section explaining the historical devotion, which has fallen off in many parishes but is still well known in older Catholic communities.

I had not thought about the Fourteen Holy Helpers in years. Praying through this novena was a reminder of how concrete and human the older devotions are: St. Blaise for throats, St. Erasmus for stomach pain, St. Apollonia for teeth. The Church has always had saints to ask for help in particular trouble, and this app keeps that tradition close at hand.

A good fit when someone in your family is sick, when you are facing surgery, or when you simply want to deepen your familiarity with the saints beyond the well-known names. RCIA candidates and parents teaching their children about the communion of saints will find this useful too. Also a quiet companion during Lent.

It is the Lite version, so some content is held back for the paid edition. The app is older and the design shows its age. Father Hammer's text reads as 19th-century devotional prose, which some will love and some will find a bit florid.

Free, by Leonard Mamangkey. Available on the App Store: Fourteen Holy Helpers Lite. A small window into a rich and nearly forgotten Catholic devotion.