Day 6: The mercy of Christ

On the sixth day of the Saint Jude Novena, we receive the Apostle's own counsel for the soul in extreme need: wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life (Jude 21). The Letter of Jude does not promise the relief we want, on the timeline we want; it promises the mercy of Christ. Today we deepen our prayer by recovering our confidence in that mercy as the substance, not merely the form, of our hope.

Today's meditation

The Catholic tradition holds the mercy of Christ as the central reality of the Gospel. Misericordia in Latin, from miser (wretched) and cor (heart), names the heart that is moved by another's wretchedness. The mercy of Christ is not pity from a distance. It is the active movement of the divine heart toward us in our wretchedness, the choice to take our condition upon Himself in the Incarnation and to bear it through to its end on the Cross.

The Apostle Jude addresses his readers in the same Letter as those "called, beloved in God the Father and kept for Jesus Christ" (Jude 1). Three identities are given before any exhortation: called, beloved, kept. These are also our identities as we pray this novena. We are not strangers approaching an indifferent Lord; we are beloved sons and daughters who have already been called and are already being kept by Him.

Today's intention

Today, instead of bringing your intention to Saint Jude with anxiety, bring it with the confidence of the beloved. Saint Jude, please present this matter to your Master, who has called and beloved me, and who is now keeping me through this trial. 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

Catholic spiritual writers have observed that the soul in distress often comes to mistrust the very thing the Apostle Jude commands us to trust: the mercy of Christ. The thoughts come: Perhaps I have not been good enough. Perhaps I have not earned the right to ask. Perhaps the answer to my prayer would be a kind of indulgence that the Lord is unwilling to grant. These thoughts are temptations against the doctrine of the Gospel itself.

"He has not dealt with us according to our sins, nor requited us according to our iniquities. For as the heavens are high above the earth, so great is his steadfast love toward those who fear him; as far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our transgressions from us. As a father pities his children, so the Lord pities those who fear him" (Psalm 103:10-13).

The Saint Jude Novena is prayed by the unworthy. We are all unworthy. The Apostle does not ask us to be worthy before approaching him; he asks us to bring our impossible cause to him with confidence in the mercy of Christ. The Lord's promise to Saint Faustina, recorded in her Diary, is the same promise to every soul that approaches Him in trust: "My Heart overflows with great mercy for souls, and especially for poor sinners. The greater the sinner, the greater the right he has to My mercy."

If your impossible cause has any element of past failure, mistake, or guilt mixed in with it (and most do), today is the day to entrust that element specifically to Christ's mercy through Saint Jude's intercession. Saint Jude, please ask the Lord to deal with this not according to my deserving but according to His mercy.

Closing prayers

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

Saint Jude, Apostle of the merciful Christ, intercede for us according to His mercy and not according to our merits.