DON'T QUIT

When things go wrong
As they sometimes will
When the road you’re trudging
Seems all uphill
When the funds are low
And the debts are high
When you want to smile
But you have to sigh
When care is pressing you down a bit
By all means pray, and don’t you quit!

Success is failure turned inside out.
God’s hidden gifts in the clouds of doubt
You can never tell how close you are
It may be near when it seems afar
So trust in the Lord when you’re hardest hit
It’s when things go wrong
That you must not quit!

PRAYER TO SAINT JUDE

Most Holy Apostle St. Jude,
Faithful servant and friend of Jesus,
the Church honors and invokes you universally,
as the patron saint of hopeless cases,
of things almost despaired of.
Pray for me, I am so helpless and alone.

Make use, I implore you, of that particular privilege given to you
to bring visible and speedy help where help is almost despaired of.
Come to my assistance in this great need that I might receive the consolation and help of Heaven
in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly for your namesake Madeleine Jude, for your keepsake Veronica Jane, and for your little one Anne-Catharine Helen, please help them to live long, happy, and peace-filled lives, to know right from wrong, to be good to their neighbors and to love the Lord.
I promise, O blessed St. Jude, to be ever mindful of this great favor,
to always honor you as my special and powerful patron,
and to gratefully encourage devotion to you.
Amen.

THOMAS MERTON PRAYER

My Lord God, I have no idea where I am going.
I do not see the road ahead of me.
I cannot know for certain where it will end.
Nor do I really know myself, and the fact that I think that I am following your will does not mean that I am actually doing so.
But I believe that the desire to please you does in fact please you.
And I hope I have that desire in all that I am doing.
I hope that I will never do anything apart from that desire.
And I know that if I do this you will lead me by the right road though I may know nothing about it.
Therefore will I trust you always though I may seem to be lost and in the shadow of death.
I will not fear, for you are ever with me, and you will never leave me to face my perils alone.