<P> In Eastern and Central Europe, novena practices continue . For example, novena among the faithfuls in Czech Republic includes nine hour prayers dedicated to the Infant Jesus of Prague, where the devotee can plead personal urgent needs before the statue of Child Christ if he or she wants to, and on May 27 every year, the statue is ceremoniously paraded through the streets of Prague with prayer songs . During the communist era, the devout orthodox Christians in the former Yugoslavia organized the Great Novena under the statue of Virgin Mary, to resist the state enforced atheism, to maintain the freedom to practice religion as a faithful feels appropriate, and to re-assert the Christian legacy of the region, particularly in Croatia . </P> <P> In Catholic Ireland, states Gladys Ganiel--a professor of Religion, devotional practices such as novenas have been popular . The cultural acceptance of devotional worship has been historically high, and those Irish who themselves do not perform novenas, nevertheless respect those who do . Some of their Catholic ritual practices were repressed by the British state during the 18th and 19th centuries, but repression and criticism only increased the resolve of the Irish to persist in their ways of practicing their faith . </P> <P> In North America, annual novena are observed in some regions such as in Montreal Canada, where between March 10 and 19 the annual novena ends in a feast of Saint Joseph . A religious survey published in the 1921 Bulletin of the University of Notre Dame, states that novena prayers were popular, and particularly common among students during examinations and during illness or after the death of a fellow student . The Novena - Seance remain popular in many regions of the United States, such as among the Roman Catholics of Louisiana where novenas are dedicated to St. Jude and the Virgin Mary . These novenas are prayers believed to create a contact between the saint and the devotee, and thereby invoke divine intervention in whatever problem or anxiety is important to the devotee . </P> <P> Novena has been an important part of Christianity in the Caribbean and Latin America, both among the native Indian communities who converted to Christianity under the colonial Spanish or Portuguese rule, as well as the diverse communities that formed anew from millions of slaves and indentured laborers brought to the Americas from different parts of Africa and Asia . The devotional prayers are dedicated to idols of Jesus Christ, Madonna and various saints . They are also a part of velorio (wake) after the death of someone, which includes nine nights of novena (rezos de los nueve días). </P>

Does a novena end on the feast day