Best Catholic novenas for impossible causes
The Catholic Church has cultivated specific devotions for cases in which the natural remedies are exhausted. The three principal novenas are to Saint Jude Thaddeus, the apostolic patron of desperate causes; to Saint Rita of Cascia, the Saint of the Impossible, particularly for family and marital situations; and the Surrender Novena of Don Dolindo Ruotolo, for the release of the situation entirely into the hands of Christ.
Each of these is described below with the specific kind of case it has historically addressed in the Catholic tradition.
If you need to start a novena today: begin with the Saint Jude Novena. It is the oldest and most universally prayed Catholic novena for desperate cases. Many Catholics pray the Surrender Novena alongside it.
The St Jude Novena
For: the intercession of Saint Jude Thaddeus for impossible and desperate causes
Saint Jude Thaddeus, one of the Twelve Apostles, is the Catholic patron of impossible and desperate causes. The tradition holds that because Jude shared a name with Judas Iscariot, the betrayer, the early Catholic faithful neglected to invoke him, with the result that he became powerfully responsive to those who finally turned to him in the most hopeless cases. The Saint Jude Novena is the single most widely-prayed Catholic novena for impossible situations of every kind.
When to pray it: Whenever the situation is genuinely without natural remedy: terminal medical diagnoses without options, financial collapse, the conversion of someone who has refused God for decades, the restoration of relationships long broken.
The Saint Rita Novena
For: obtaining the intercession of Saint Rita of Cascia in apparently impossible situations, difficult marriages, and impossible reconciliations
Saint Rita of Cascia (1381-1457) is called the Saint of the Impossible. Forced into an unhappy marriage, widowed by violence, her two sons dying before they could pursue blood vengeance, she finally entered the Augustinian convent at Cascia after the rules were miraculously suspended for her. She bore a wound from the crown of thorns of Christ for the last fifteen years of her life. The Saint Rita Novena is prayed for situations of impossible marriage, family violence, the conversion of children, and circumstances where every natural door has closed.
When to pray it: On the feast of Saint Rita (May 22) or in situations of profound family or relational suffering.
The Surrender Novena
For: surrendering anxieties, illnesses, family troubles, and impossible situations to Jesus
The Surrender Novena, composed by the Servant of God Don Dolindo Ruotolo in the early twentieth century, is a single short prayer ("O Jesus, I surrender myself to You; take care of everything") repeated each day. It is the Catholic novena for moments when the soul has exhausted its own resources and must release the situation entirely into the hands of God. Many Catholics pray it alongside the Saint Jude or Saint Rita Novena.
When to pray it: When the inability to fix the situation has become a source of greater anxiety than the situation itself.
What makes a cause "impossible" in Catholic tradition?
The Catholic tradition recognizes a particular category of prayer for cases in which the petitioner has reached the end of natural remedy. The classical examples include:
- Terminal medical diagnoses for which no treatment exists
- Long-broken family relationships, particularly between parents and adult children
- Marital situations in which one spouse has abandoned the home or the faith
- Catastrophic financial loss without natural path of recovery
- The conversion of a soul who has actively refused God for a lifetime
- Legal cases with no apparent ground for hope
- Addictions in which willpower has demonstrably failed
In each case, the petition is not for the merely difficult but for the genuinely beyond-natural-reach. The Catholic tradition holds that God hears these prayers with particular attention because they proceed from a soul who has acknowledged the limits of its own powers.
The Catholic theology of desperate prayer
The Lord Jesus Himself commends the persistence of desperate prayer in the parable of the unjust judge (Luke 18:1-8) and in His own prayer in Gethsemane, "Father, if Thou be willing, remove this chalice from Me; nevertheless, not My will, but Thine, be done" (Luke 22:42). Catholic prayer for impossible causes follows both movements: the desperate persistence of the widow before the judge, and the surrender of Christ in the Garden.
The Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches that "filial trust is tested when we think we are not heard. It is verified when we believe in God's providence in the most desperate situations" (paragraph 2734). Praying a novena for an impossible cause is, in the Catholic understanding, a school of this filial trust. The soul may not receive the answer it first sought; it always receives the deeper grace of communion with the One to whom it has cried.
Pairing impossible-cause novenas with the sacraments
The Catholic tradition holds that impossible-cause prayer is particularly powerful when offered in a state of grace, in conjunction with the Act of Contrition and the Sacrament of Penance, and the Holy Eucharist received with deliberate offering of the Mass for the intention. The full sacramental disposition unites the prayer of the individual Catholic to the prayer of the universal Church and the Sacrifice of Christ Himself.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Catholic 'impossible cause'?
Catholic tradition uses the phrase for any situation in which the natural remedies are exhausted or were never available: a terminal medical diagnosis, a decades-long estrangement, a financial collapse with no path forward, the conversion of a soul who has refused God for an entire lifetime. The category is intentionally broad. The point is the disposition of the soul, not the technical hopelessness of the case.
Why is Saint Jude associated with impossible causes specifically?
Because his name was confused with Judas Iscariot, the Catholic faithful neglected to invoke him in ordinary cases for many centuries. Tradition holds that he therefore became the saint who specifically heard the prayers no one else would bring, and through that history he developed an unusual responsiveness to desperate and impossible petitions. The Catholic Church has affirmed this devotion under multiple popes.
What if the impossible cause does not resolve after the novena?
Pray it again. The Catholic tradition of perpetual novenas (nine consecutive novenas, or the same novena prayed on the same weekday for nine weeks) is specifically for cases where the petitioner is called to deepen the surrender. The fruit of an unanswered novena is sometimes the strengthening of the soul to receive a different answer than the one first imagined.
Is it Catholic to give up on a situation?
Surrendering a situation to God is not the same as giving up on it. The Surrender Novena explicitly teaches that the prayer of release is a deeper kind of trust, not abandonment of hope. The Catholic gives the situation to God precisely because He alone can act in cases beyond human power.
Related Catholic devotions
Beyond the three novenas above, several Catholic devotions are traditionally associated with impossible cases: the Agony in the Garden as a meditation of Christ's own desperate prayer; the Memorare, the great Catholic prayer of confidence in Marian intercession ("Never was it known that anyone who fled to thy protection... was left unaided"); and the Divine Mercy Chaplet, prayed at three o'clock for the most urgent intentions.