The Surrender Novena

The Surrender Novena is a nine-day prayer composed by the Servant of God Don Dolindo Ruotolo (1882-1970), an Italian diocesan priest of the Archdiocese of Naples whose cause for canonization was opened in 2017. The novena is structured around a single refrain, repeated ten times each day: O Jesus, I surrender myself to You, take care of everything. The simplicity of the prayer is the source of its power. The novena names anxieties precisely so they can be released, and trains the soul over nine days in a habit of trust that the spiritual tradition has long called abandonment to Divine Providence.

Origin and history of the Surrender Novena

Don Dolindo Ruotolo was born in Naples on 6 October 1882 to a poor family in the working class of the city. He was ordained a diocesan priest of Naples on 24 June 1905 and spent his entire life in the same archdiocese, never traveling further than a few miles from his birthplace except for his theological studies. His public ministry was constantly interrupted by ecclesiastical controversies (including a 1937 placement of his biblical commentaries on the Index of Forbidden Books, later lifted), and his hidden life as a spiritual director and confessor became the principal channel of his ministry. Saint Padre Pio is recorded as saying of him to his own spiritual children: "Naples has a great saint: Don Dolindo. Go to him, he is a saint."

The text of the Surrender Novena is drawn from Don Dolindo's mystical notebooks, in which he recorded interior locutions he received from Jesus over many years of prayer. The novena's nine days each open with a passage in which Jesus, speaking in the first person, instructs the soul on the meaning and practice of surrender. The dating of the meditations is approximate; the first published edition appeared in Italian in the 1930s, and the novena gained widespread circulation in the Catholic world only after Don Dolindo's death in 1970 and especially after the 2017 opening of his cause for beatification.¹

The structure of the Surrender Novena

Each day of the novena follows the same structure:

1. The meditation: a brief passage from Don Dolindo's notebooks in which Jesus speaks to the soul about surrender. Each day approaches the theme from a different angle: the obstacle of self-effort, the fruits of trust, the patience required, the way that abandonment opens the door for Christ to act.
2. The refrain: O Jesus, I surrender myself to You, take care of everything, repeated ten times.
3. A closing prayer: Mother, I am Yours now and forever. Through You and with You I always want to belong completely to Jesus.

The ten repetitions of the refrain are the central work of the novena. Catholic spiritual tradition recognizes the value of repeated prayer: the rosary, the Jesus Prayer of the Eastern tradition, and the litanies of the saints all use repetition to allow a single phrase to descend from the mind into the heart. The Surrender Novena is in this tradition. Ten times, the soul names the anxiety it is carrying and gives it to Jesus. Over nine days, ninety such acts of surrender are made.

Who prays the Surrender Novena

The Surrender Novena is most commonly prayed by Catholics carrying:

• A serious illness in oneself or a family member
• A persistent family conflict (between spouses, between parents and children, in extended family)
• Financial distress, unemployment, or a precarious work situation
• Anxiety, depression, or interior darkness
• A discernment of a major life decision
• Concern for a child who has fallen away from the faith
• A "lost cause" in any of these or other dimensions of life

The novena is not bound to a particular liturgical season and may be prayed at any time. It is sometimes prayed in preparation for the feast of the Sacred Heart of Jesus (the Friday after the second Sunday after Pentecost), since the Sacred Heart devotion shares the Surrender Novena's theological foundation in the love of Jesus and trust in his providence.

Theological foundations of surrender

The Surrender Novena is rooted in three foundational sources of Catholic spiritual theology.

First, the Gospel teaching on trust in the Father's providence: "Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you shall eat or what you shall drink, nor about your body, what you shall put on... your heavenly Father knows that you need them all" (Matthew 6:25-32). The Surrender Novena names the anxiety the Lord Jesus addresses in this passage and applies the medicine of trust.

Second, the spirituality of abandonment to Divine Providence developed in the Catholic tradition by Father Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J. (1675-1751) in his classic work of the same title, and earlier by Saint Francis de Sales (1567-1622) in the Treatise on the Love of God. The teaching that the soul finds peace by accepting in each moment ("the sacrament of the present moment") whatever God permits, neither resisting His will nor straining ahead of it, is the foundation of Don Dolindo's text.

Third, the kenotic and confident prayer modeled by Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane: "Father, if thou art willing, remove this cup from me; nevertheless not my will, but thine, be done" (Luke 22:42). Christian surrender is not passivity; it is the act of bringing the real anxiety into the presence of God and entrusting its outcome to Him.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church treats Christian trust in providence in paragraphs 301 to 314 and treats abandonment to Divine Providence as a fruit of filial prayer in paragraph 2734 onward. The Surrender Novena is a popular Catholic application of this magisterial teaching to the concrete anxieties of ordinary lay life.²

How to pray the Surrender Novena well

Several practical observations from Catholic spiritual writers on the proper practice of the novena:

• Pray it for nine consecutive days. Don Dolindo's instruction is for nine days, not nine "instances when convenient." If a day is missed, begin again from day one. The unbroken sequence is itself a small act of surrender, a refusal to let the day's troubles override the prayer.
• Repeat the refrain slowly. Ten times is the prescribed count, but the value is in the depth of each repetition, not in the speed. Allow each take care of everything to actually relinquish the named anxiety.
• Name the anxiety concretely. Generic surrender is less fruitful than specific surrender. Before the ten repetitions, name aloud or interiorly the precise burden being entrusted: the medical scan on Tuesday, my son's marriage, the rent.
• Do not oscillate after surrender. A common pattern is to surrender the matter at the time of prayer, then immediately reclaim it through worry or planning the rest of the day. Don Dolindo addresses this directly in the meditations of days two and four. When the worry returns, repeat Jesus, I surrender myself to You, take care of everything and resume the day.
• Pair the novena with the sacraments. The novena is prayed by the sacramentally living Catholic: confession when needed, frequent communion, the rhythm of the parish liturgy. The novena does not replace the sacramental life; it deepens its dispositions.

Pairing the Surrender Novena with other prayers

Catholics commonly pair the Surrender Novena with other foundational devotions:

• The Our Father, prayed each day at the close of the novena, anchors the surrender in the Lord's own prayer to the Father.
• The Hail Mary and the Memorare place the novena under the intercession of the Mother of God, in keeping with Don Dolindo's closing prayer to Mary.
• The Holy Rosary, particularly the Sorrowful Mysteries, meditate on the same Christ who surrendered Himself in the Garden of Gethsemane and on the Cross.
• The Divine Mercy Chaplet, which includes the refrain Jesus, I trust in You, is theologically continuous with Don Dolindo's Jesus, I surrender myself to You.

For broader theological context, see the Communion of Saints.

Sources

Footnotes

1. Don Dolindo Ruotolo, L'Abbandono alla Divina Volontà (the Italian collection of his mystical notebooks, posthumous editions). The text of the Surrender Novena is preserved in this collection and in the official documentation of his cause for beatification, opened by the Archdiocese of Naples in 2017. English translations are available in Trustful Surrender to Divine Providence (anonymous nineteenth-century edition, public domain) and in subsequent Catholic publishers' editions. ↩

2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraphs 301-314 (Divine Providence) and paragraphs 2734-2741 (filial trust in prayer). Available at vatican.va. Jean-Pierre de Caussade, S.J., Abandonment to Divine Providence (eighteenth-century French original; numerous English editions). Saint Francis de Sales, Treatise on the Love of God (1616; multiple English editions). ↩