Daily prayer
to St. Jude

O kindSaint-Jude, our faithful intercessor to Jesus, receive the following special intentions : to present them to the Almighty Lord, Root of all good. Above all, grant us an increase of our faith in His love. May each day find us closer in our relationship with our Heavenly Father. KindSaint-Jude, you who has revived hope in our hearts, you whose model merits and life bring us the divine blessings and graces, be our advocate, and lead us to Jesus and Mary. With you, blessed apostle, we give thanks and praise God with all our heart for His innumerable kindnesses. Amen.

The Monthly Note

January 2007

Hope…..for the new year

by Fr. Jean-Louis Larochelle, OP

With the New Year, many people wish for a better year than the one that is finishing.  Better heath wise, better in their family relations, better in their financial situation.  Let’s make room for dreams, for optimism! But, there are also sceptics and defeatists.  For them, the New Year will be the same as the one about to end.  They say: « I will have the same house, the same job, and the same people around me. Plus, my salary will barely follow the cost of inflation. So why dream?  Why think that it will be better in the next months? »

Are these Christian attitudes?  Not really.  Because, as Christians, it is towards God that we have to look up to.  Faith invites us not to take into consideration only our materialistic way of life, to not fall in spiritual myopia.  It is the time of year when we have to remember that God will be with us.  That He will accompany us as the days go by.  That His kindness will surround us as it will surround those around us.

We will, of course, be conscious of the evil that is present in our world. We will continue to see the weaknesses in the persons surrounding us.  Even the limits of our socio-political system will not escape us.  However, we will be able to rejoice from all that will emerge in the next months from charity, kindness, sharing and justice in our surroundings.  This capability to see what corresponds to the coming of the Kingdom of God will shed a new light to our wishes. In this flux, our vision of the New Year will be part of God’s great project for humanity.

With the start of this New Year, the staff of the Saint-Jude Oratory want to share with you God’s own blessing.  They wish that in the following months, the flame of the Gospel inhabits you even if there’s no significant changes in our lives.  The staff especially wishes that your life has a human and spiritual growth that is, for you and your loved ones, a source of rejoicing.

May the God of grace bless us all!

Jean-Louis Larochelle, o.p.