Sunday, February 28, 2010

Patron Saint of Hopeless Cases!

Growing up in an African family with strong christian values, I learned quickly about the need to pray because - prayer is the master key. Right? My christian values were further concretized when I enrolled in a Catholic secondary school and remained a student in the institution for 7 consecutive years. During these years, I learned a lot and grew mentally and spiritually stronger. I must confess some of the things I learned at school, were learned the hard way, but the bottom line is - I learned them. One of the numerous religious lessons (some "unholy" things were learned too) I learned at school was the fact that devotion to the holy apostles should be cherished. Do you know the apostle St. Jude Thaddeus? Do you know he's the patron saint of hopeless and desperate cases? I got to learn about this in an unlikely fashion. You might be interested to know.

Back in secondary school (Form 5), English Language lessons were one of those lessons I didn't look forward to; not because I didn't like the course. It's fair to say the teacher (may he rest in peace) was a little bit too challenging. He expected nothing but the best from all of us and usually, he didn't like to repeat his instructions. I always remember the word, "in fact" - many people negligently spell it as one word. I'd also never forget the word, "cannot". Back in the days, misspelling such words (among other things) would incur the "wrath" of my English language teacher and qualify you as a hopeless case - a "Saint Jude's case." I was not the best student, but I was never a hopeless case in English Language. Coming to think of it, maybe I was in Mathematics. Were you a hopeless case under any circumstance?

When we were preparing for the General Certificate Examination (G.C.E), English Language was one of the compulsory subjects. Every student wanted to validate it, but according to my teacher, there were some students in the class who'd not validate the subject - without the help of the patron Saint of hopeless and desperate cases.

However, when the G.C.E results were published, I was happy to learn that my classmates - the "St. Jude cases", validated English Language. I guess they took the teacher's advise and prayed tirelessly to St. Jude Thaddeus.

This is how I learned about St. Jude Thaddeus. His feast day is October 28 and since my secondary school days, I pray to St. Jude, when faced with a hopeless or grave circumstance.

Are you in a hopeless situation? Are you in desperate need of a grave necessity? I encourage you to pray to St. Jude Thaddeus - the Patron Saint of Hopeless and Desperate Cases. He'd intercede for you.

As usual, I look forward to reading your comments and please, let me know when St. Jude Thaddeus helps you out of that hopeless and desperate situation!

Here are some Prayers to Saint Jude.

1 comment:

  1. As always, time spent on this blog is never time wasted! Great article. I must admit I had forgotten these things, tilting more towards Baptist since I got married. There's always a hopeless case when we look hard enough and I will certainly inform u when my prayers are answered! God Bless u always.

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