November closed with the Feast of St. Andrew the Apostle, giving the faithful the opportunity to seek his intercession if they pray the St. Andrew Christmas Novena 15 times between Nov. 30 and Dec. 24.

"It is piously believed that whoever recites the St. Andrew Christmas Novena 15 times each day from the feast of St. Andrew (Nov. 30) until Christmas Eve will obtain the favor requested,” Ascension Press posted on Twitter. 

St. Andrew was one of Jesus’ 12 apostles, according to Catholic.org. Jesus recruited him and his brother, St. Peter, as they were fishing in the Sea of Galilee.

St. Andrew was said to have had a very close relationship with Jesus. After Jesus’ death, Andrew traveled around what is now Greece and Turkey preaching the Gospel, Catholic.org adds. Andrew was later put to death in Patras by crucifixion. He was crucified on an X-shaped cross, which is now known as “St. Andrew’s Cross,” supposedly because he did not believe himself to be worthy of crucifixion on the same type of cross as Jesus.

Ascension Press shared the St. Andrew Christmas Novena, which goes as follows: "Hail and blessed be the hour and moment in which the Son of God was born Of the most pure Virgin Mary, at midnight, in Bethlehem, in the piercing cold. In that hour vouchsafe, I beseech Thee, O my God, to hear my prayer and grant my desires through the merits of Our Savior Jesus Christ, and of His blessed Mother. Amen.” 

Blessed is She, a Catholic organization, explains that the word “novena” comes from the Latin word for “nine” and refers to saying a novena prayer for nine consecutive days. The number nine could signify the nine months that Mary was pregnant with Jesus, or it could refer to when the Apostles and Mary prayer for the nine days between Jesus’s Ascension into Heaven and Pentecost.