Novena For Terri-Sixth Day

St. Jude Novena

Sixth Day--

Among these ordinary men who became
the world's greatest, Jude seems to have been
marked only in that he was more ordinary
than the rest.

We do not know whether he was tall or short,
handsome or plain.

There were a thousand others of his name.
In a crowd he would have been lost in the
routine similarity of trade and clothes and
looks and speech.

Jude had none of the qualities that make
for earthly preeminence; he had all the
generous qualities that the Savior had sought.

From the multitude the finger of the Lord
singled him out. Like the rest of men he clung
naturally to his small possessions and still
more to his right to fashion for himself the kind
of life he cared to live.

Unlike most men he gave up all things to
follow Christ, and he accepted whatever the
Savior planned for him. He could echo sincerely
the triumphant words of Saint Peter: "Behold,
we have left all things and have followed thee."

He could hear throughout his life and at the
moment of his thrilling entry into heaven, "Well
done, good and faithful servant."

In the hope that we will follow in the footsteps
of Jude, from obscurity to eternal glory, we
say:

O God, who through Thy blessed Apostle
Jude hast brought us into the knowledge of
Thy name, grant that by advancing in virtue
we may set forth his everlasting glory, and by
setting forth his glory we may advance in
virtue. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, thy Son,
who livest and reignest with Thee in the unity
of the Holy Ghost. God, world without end.

Amen.