THREE MINUTES WITH THE SAINTS
St. Jude: The Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes
The saint for times when all seems lost
I was looking back through my lists here recently and was surprised to find that it has been exactly a year since I last did an installment of my “Three Minutes with the Saints” series. Because I enjoyed writing them and at least three of you seemed to enjoy reading them, I am ending that long hiatus today. But because it has been such a long layoff, there are a few things I should mention first.
Both my Protestant friends and my fellow Catholics get a lot of things wrong when it comes to the saints. First of all, we do not worship the saints; worship is reserved for God alone. We do, however, venerate the saints, much as you would honor any person of great note. My pastor thinks I come perilously close to worshiping Bruce Springsteen, but he’s a Franciscan and I think he leans more toward the Beatles anyway.
Second, we do not pray to the saints in the same way we pray to God; we pray to the saints in the sense of asking for their intercession. In other words, we are asking them to pray for us and with us, just like we would ask a friend or family member to pray for us. Finally, the saints are not holy good luck charms. Burying a statue of St. Joseph in your yard will not help…
