Today is the feast of St. Jude, the patron saint of hopeless or desperate causes and a special advocate of those who are in trouble.

My mother's sister and my godmother, Aunty Adeline, prayed to St. Jude her entire life. "He comes through for you," my aunt believed.

Also known as Thaddeus, a name which means sweetness and generous character, St. Jude dedicated his life to serving Jesus Christ and has been called "the forgotten saint" because his name was similar to Judas Iscariot, the apostle who betrayed Christ.

"It makes no difference how deeply seated may be the trouble, how hopeless the outlook, how muddled the tangle, how great the mistake," observed metaphysician Emmet Fox. "A sufficient realization of love will dissolve it all."

With the outset of World War II, devotion to St. Jude reached meaningful proportions. Throughout the world today, thousands are a part of a powerful circle of prayer to St. Jude for hope, healing, and miraculous intercession.

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not quite, the not yet, the not at all," urged Presbyterian minister Henry Ward Beecher.

More FAITH Quotations

You are never alone.