Day 3: Patron of impossible causes

On the third day of the Saint Jude Novena, we contemplate the particular patronage that has made Saint Jude the most invoked Apostle in moments of human extremity: his patronage of impossible, desperate, and almost-hopeless causes. The teaching of the saints, including Saint Bridget of Sweden, is that the Lord has accorded Saint Jude this particular privilege, and Catholics across the world have testified to his power.

Today's meditation

The patronage of impossible causes did not arise by accident. According to a private revelation recorded in the Revelations of Saint Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373), the Lord Jesus made known to her that the veneration of Saint Jude had been neglected, in part because his name was confused in the popular mind with that of Judas Iscariot the betrayer, and that as compensation for this neglect, his intercession would be particularly efficacious in cases that seemed beyond hope. Saint Bernard of Clairvaux is reported to have promoted the same teaching. Across the centuries the tradition has hardened into an unbroken Catholic conviction: when there is nothing left, pray to Saint Jude.

The patronage is not magical. It is grounded in the real privilege of the Apostle to obtain from the Lord the specific graces He wishes to give through Saint Jude, and in the Lord's gracious decision to accord those graces in cases that appear, by every human measure, beyond reach.

Today's intention

Bring once more to Saint Jude the cause that has been on your heart through these days. If today you find yourself wavering ("perhaps it is not really impossible enough; perhaps I should not bother him"), set the wavering aside. The novena is for cases like this. Then pray:

Most holy Apostle, Saint Jude, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, the Church honors and invokes you universally, as the patron of difficult cases, of things almost despaired of. Pray for me, who am so miserable. Make use, I implore you, of that particular privilege accorded to you, to bring visible and speedy help where help was almost despaired of. Come to my assistance in this great need, that I may receive the consolations and succor of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly (name your request), and that I may praise God with you and all the elect forever. I promise you, O blessed Saint Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favor, to always honor you as my special and powerful patron, and to gratefully encourage devotion to you. Amen.

Reflection

The Catholic devotion to Saint Jude has a peculiar character: it is the devotion of those who have come to the literal end of their resources. The hospital chaplain at the bed of a patient declared to have weeks to live. The mother of a son in prison who has refused to see her for years. The husband of a wife who has filed for divorce. The widow of forty years' marriage in the first weeks after the loss. These are the people who, having tried everything, turn finally to Saint Jude.

There is a particular Catholic wisdom in this. The Lord Jesus calls the poor in spirit blessed (Matthew 5:3). The poor in spirit are precisely those who have come to the bottom of their own capacity and are open at last to receive from God. The desperate situation that brought us to Saint Jude is also the situation that brought us to a deeper kind of openness to grace. Saint Jude is the Apostle of the bottom, where human resourcefulness has run out and only the action of God can suffice.

Many who have prayed the Saint Jude Novena have testified, after the fact, that the answer when it came was not exactly the answer they had originally requested but something deeper: a peace they had not asked for, a reconciliation they had not imagined, a strength to bear what could not be removed. The Apostle's intercession is real, but it is calibrated to the soul's true good, which is sometimes more than what the soul knows how to ask.

Closing prayers

Pray three times each: the Our Father, the Hail Mary, and the Glory Be.

Saint Jude, glorious Apostle, patron of impossible causes, pray for us in our great need.