The Monthly Note
November 2019
Each
month has its beauties. November must have his, but few people
will admit that it is their favorite! November is the month of
the dead. Moreover, the living are not up to celebrate it.
The darkness comes earlier in the day, and the cold gives us a taste of
winter to come. A month brings nostalgia or depression.
Luckily, during the Novena to Saint Jude, we have filled ourselves
up with hope to enter this gloomier period of the year. Hope is
often associated with light. Don’t we say: « to see
the light and the end of the tunnel»? November could claim
the title of « the month of hope», this strength that makes
us overcome difficult periods of our lives, when darkness surrounds
us. We must hold on, persevere even when life doesn’t smile
at us and when light is lacking.
The colour of our Saint Jude’s coat is green, The colour green
is a mixture of blue, colour associated with depression, and if yellow,
colour that reminds us of the brightness of the sun. The Saint
Jude Prayer Team take refuge under this coat, bringing, to those in
distress, their support in prayer that is like the offering of a
sunray. Don’t we all navigate between these two primary
colours of blue and green?
The end of year liturgy, with its apocalyptic images, wants to
remind us that we must gaze at this glimmer of hope that is called to
become light like no other. Let us leave the last word to Tagore,
a poet and Nobel Prize winner in literature: « Death is not
shutting the light; it is blowing the lamp because dawn has
arrived».
Raymond Latour, o.p.
Director of the Saint Jude’s Apostolic Works.