Pray, Hope, Don’t Worry

By Cordelia Fitzgerald.

In an embarrassing moment, I couldn’t remember if St. Jude was the patron saint of impossible cases or hopeless ones. Nevermind, said I to myself, it all means the same thing. But au contraire, my fickle self, for they are indeed quite different. The Bible is succinct as regards the former: “Because nothing shall be impossible with God” (Luke 1:37). Need He say more? This impossible thing, though, this thing which can’t be done, differs from the hopeless thing, the thing which we have given up hope on.

The first is a reality; the second is a choice. After all, hope is a theological virtue, while hopelessness, or despair, is a sin against hope, which the Church tells us is the “presence and action of the Holy Spirit in [us]” (Catechism of the Catholic Church 1813). When we hope, then, we are cooperating with the Holy Spirit through the participation in this theological virtue. 

This is wonderful, but it also means that we should avoid sinning (always!) against this virtue, remembering that the only unforgivable sin is the one against the Holy Spirit. We are given the free will that makes love possible, but unless we believe in Christ and hope in His Salvation, we deny the power of the Holy Spirit. We not only reject the offer, but also insult its Giver by essentially saying that He doesn’t know what He is doing. Yikes! So how do we avoid that?

Asking St. Jude to help isn’t a bad idea. We can ask for the fulfillment of our desires through his intercession while also asking him to pray that our hopelessness be supplanted by a “deep and lively faith, hope, and charity” (Prayer Before Jesus Christ Crucified). Maybe, after all, St. Jude is the patron of both impossible and hopeless cases, for he can pray that the hopeless one before God remembers that he can “do all…things in Him who strengtheneth” him (Phillippians 4:13). Perhaps he prays for hope for the person and a resolution for the case in one breath.

“For we are saved by hope. But hope that is seen is not hope. For what a man seeth, why doth he hope for? But if we hope for that which we see not, we wait for it with patience.” 

Romans 8:24-25