Ora Pro Nobis

I had something going on that while not really serious wasn't completely trivial either and it seemed inevitable. I pass that St. Jude statue at SJV all the time and it always has flowers in front of it, so I figured why not. I prayed about it, I asked St. Jude to pray about it, mostly for the grace to deal with said inevitability.

Then the inevitable thing didn't happen.

I'm honestly overwhelmed at the moment about this, since I'm not a cradle Catholic and whole intercessory prayer of the Church Triumphant thing isn't something I'm used to. I say Hail Marys, we do litanies of saints sometimes, but it's more like something I wish could be true.

I know cynics would say that I'm assigning cause where there was none, Protestants might say that it was my prayer that was heard and St. Jude had nothing to do with it. I just can't help but feel that asking for his prayer to be said with my intentions had something to do with this. We ask our friends to pray for us all the time, so really I shouldn't be so surprised that someone already in the presence of God would be happy to pray for me, too. Maybe his status as patron saint of hopeless causes was just the grace I needed to remember that nothing is beyond grace, that I should offer prayers about whatever I'm going through.

Thanks, St. Jude, for praying for me. Thanks for helping me learn to trust in God's grace a little more. I've been Catholic for almost eight years and I'm still learning the basics.