Today is the Feast Day of Saints Simon and Jude.This is the second time I’ve done the novena to St. Jude. I save St. Jude for really difficult and/or perplexing problems. But whenever I do the novena to him, I make sure and pile on every other little problem or trouble facing me and everyone I know.
I figure so long as I’m praying to the Saint of ‘Desperate Situations and Hopeless Cases’, why not? St. Jude is generous. Can one have ‘greediness’ for spiritual graces and favors for loved ones?
At Mass today the Gospel was the calling of the Twelve Apostles,
“Jesus went up to the mountain to pray, and he spent the night in prayer to God.Then Father told us an interesting story about the building of the great Cathedral at Chartres.
When day came, he called his disciples to himself, and from them he chose Twelve, whom he also named Apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, James, John, Philip, Bartholomew, Matthew, Thomas, James the son of Alphaeus, Simon who was called a Zealot, and Judas the son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.” (Luke 6:12-16)
A man went to visit the site while they were still in the midst of building the cathedral and he began to ask the people he saw there what they were doing to contribute to the effort of constructing the great edifice of Chartres. He asked the first person he encountered what he was doing and that man said he was the stonemason and it was his job to craft the rough rock into smooth pieces of stone. Then the man asked the next person what he was doing and he said he was a glassmaker and he prepared the stained glass for the beautiful windows. The next man he came to said that he did the carving of the gargoyles and another said his job was to do the woodwork for the stairs leading up to the tower.
Each person had their part and each part was essential to the completion of the cathedral. Finally he came to an old woman who was pushing a broom sweeping up the debris that everyone else had left lying around. The man finished his questioning by asking her, “And what do you do here ma’am?” She looked at him and said, “I’m building a great cathedral,” and she went back to pushing her broom.
Sts. Simon and Jude are the least known of the twelve apostles. They probably ‘pushed the broom’ so to speak, but they built God’s Kingdom even so.
Thank you St. Jude for your many prayers to Jesus on my behalf. I know it was your intercession that made the difference.
P.S. Do you think it's a coincident that my dearly beloved father-in-law's name is Jude? Happy Feast Day Dad! ☺
