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July 30, 2008.

St. Jude, Apostle and Martyr, First Century.

Patron saint of Desperate Cases or Lost Causes

Feast Day:  October 28.
with Saint Simon the Zealot

Also known as "Thaddeus", Saint Jude is one of the twelve apostles. Jude is generally thought to be the brother of another apostle, St. James the Less, a relative of Our Saviour, and the author of the Epistle of Jude in the New Testament.

Ancient writers tell us that he preached the Gospel in Judea, Samaria, Idumaea, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Lybia. According to Eusebius, he returned to Jerusalem in the year 62, and assisted at the election of his brother, St. Simeon, as Bishop of Jerusalem.  He is an author of an epistle (letter) to the Churches of the East, particularly the Jewish converts, directed against the heresies of the Simonians, Nicolaites, and Gnostics.  This Apostle is said to have suffered martyrdom in Armenia, which was then subject to Persia.  The final conversion of the Armenian nation to Christianity did not take place until the third century of our era.  Jude was the one who asked Jesus at the Last Supper why He would not manifest Himself to the whole world after His resurrection.  Little else is known of his life.  Tradition has it that he visited Beirut and Edessa; possibly martyred with St. Simon in Persia.   Jude is invoked in desperate situations because his New Testament letter stresses that the faithful should persevere in the environment of harsh, difficult circumstances, just as their forefathers had done before them. 

Also, there were communities who had Jude as their patron in the middle ages, but his popularity (and clear record of his history) suffered.  The reason is simple enough - his name was too often confused with Judas Iscariot, Christ's betrayer.  Because of this confusion, only the most desperate would pray that Jude intercede for them... hence by the 19th century he had became popularly known as the Patron Saint of Lost Causes or Desperate Situations.

The simple truth is that, because of this confusion with Iscariot, very little is now known for certain about Saint Jude.  That being said, St. Jude is looked to as a powerful reminder of Christ's faithfulness to us in all things.  Even in the most difficult circumstances that life can present, St. Jude is seen as one who affirms for us that God is still present, still loving, still creating, still making all things new.

St. Jude our Patron

St. Jude is certainly one of the better known and most often invoked saints of our time.  It is not difficult to see why this is so when we consider the circumstances of his life.

As one of the Twelve Apostles, St. Jude witnessed, firsthand, the horrible death, on Good Friday, of his friend and teacher, Jesus.  At that moment, it must certainly have seemed to him that all was lost.  Yet, St. Jude never lost faith, and the despair and devastation of the Cross were overcome by the triumphant joy of the Resurrection.  We also know that St. Jude faced many hardships in attempting to establish Christianity in lands that were hostile or indifferent to the Good News, but his efforts eventually bore fruit in abundance because he refused to give up hope.  The Letter of Jude in the New Testament is addressed to a Christian community struggling with persecution.  In typical fashion, St. Jude exhorts the community of believers to adhere to their faith in Christ in order to endure their seemingly hopeless struggle.  We, too, have known times in our lives when all seemed lost, when we were forced to endure times of quiet desperation.  Perhaps we have suffered poor health or financial setbacks, or we have had to bear the anxiety of a spouse or child in active military service.  At times we experience the loneliness and pain of spiritual doubt and uncertainty.  And all of us have been touched at one time or another by separation and grief caused by the death of a loved one.  St. Jude is one to whom we can turn in faith at these times.  As Christians, we believe that those who have preceded us in death intercede before God on our behalf.  In times of struggle and despair, we can invoke the intercession of St. Jude, confident that he will present our needs to God.

The Life of St. Jude

The New Testament reveals very little about the life of St. Jude, other than the fact that he is counted among Jesus' Twelve Apostles.  Even his name is the cause of some confusion.  For example, in the Gospel of Luke and the Acts of the Apostles, he is referred to as "Judas son of James."  Still, he has traditionally been known among Christians of the West as the brother of James.  He is also identified with Thaddeus, who is mentioned as an apostle in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew.  The Gospel of John is careful to note that, although his name is Judas, he is not to be identified with Judas Iscariot, the betrayer of Jesus.  

Both of his names give some indication of the type of man he was:  the name "Jude" means "giver of joy," and "Thaddeus" means "generous and kind."  It appears that Jude's mother was a cousin of Jesus' mother, Mary, and his father, Cleophas, was the brother of Joseph.  Thus, even though the Gospel of Matthew (13:55) refers to him as one of the "brothers" of Jesus, he was more than likely a cousin.

It is not difficult to imagine some of the incredible things Jude experienced as one of Jesus' closest companions.  What wonder and awe he must have felt as he witnessed the many signs Jesus performed, healing and feeding the people.  He surely was perplexed and challenged by Jesus' teachings and parables about the reign of God.  How mysterious it must have been to hear Jesus say the words, "Take and drink, this is my blood," at the Last Supper.  What a terrible sense of loss on Good Friday, knowing that Jesus had died a horrible death -- and how overwhelming the joy of the Resurrection on Easter Sunday.  

After the Pentecost experience (according to a non-biblical story called the Passion of Simon and Jude), St. Jude journeyed to Mesopotamia and became a leader of the Church in the East.  He also supposedly travelled to Libya, Turkey and Persia, preaching and converting people to Christianity.  He is also sometimes credited with helping form the Church in Armenia.  The Letter of Jude in the New Testament was addressed to recent converts in the Eastern churches who were suffering persecution.  St. Jude warned them against some teachers of the day who were spreading false ideas about the Christian faith.  He said these pseudo-teachers were like "waterless clouds blown about by winds, fruitless trees in late autumn twice dead and uprooted.  They are like wild waves of the sea, foaming up their shameless deeds, wandering stars for whom the gloom of darkness has been reserved forever" (verses 12, 13).  St. Jude encouraged the Christian community to persevere in the face of its difficult circumstances by keeping the faith and staying close to God:  "But you, beloved, build yourselves up in your most holy faith; pray in the Holy Spirit.  Keep yourselves in the love of God and wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads us to eternal life" (verses 20, 21).  This exhortation to Christians facing persecution -- at a time when all seemed lost -- may be the explanation for St. Jude's being the patron saint of desperate cases.  

St. Jude is believed to have died a martyr's death and then beheaded.  His courageous martyrdom is symbolized by an ax or club he is holding in artistic renderings.  He is also traditionally depicted carrying the image of Jesus in his hand close to his chest.  This comes from a story in which King Abgar of Edessa asks Jesus to cure him of leprosy, and sent an artist to bring him a drawing of Jesus.  Impressed by Abgar's faith, Jesus pressed his face into a cloth and gave it to Jude to present to the King.  Upon seeing Jesus' image, Abgar was cured and became a follower of Jesus.  

St. Jude is also often shown with flame around his head to represent his presence at Pentecost, when he received the Holy Spirit along with the other Apostles.  St. Jude has not always played a prominent role in Catholic piety.  There have been some notable exceptions, however.  In the Middle Ages, St. Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), one of the most influential religious persons of his day, was a well-known devotee of St. Jude.  So was St. Bridget of Sweden (1303-1373), founder of the order of religious women known as the Brigittines, who turned to St. Jude joyfully and confidently after being encouraged to do so in a vision.  Devotion to St. Jude began in earnest in the 1800s.  It started in Spain, and then spread to South America, and finally to North America.  Today, his intercession is invoked by believers the world over and he is the patron saint of policemen and policewomen.

	The statuette of Jude shows the saint carrying an oar and an anchor.   Although the latter is a Christian symbol of hope - fittingly enough for the patron of lost causes - the anchor and oar may allude to the belief that Jude's early life was spent as a fisherman.
	The boat, the symbol most often associated with Saint Jude, may also allude to Jude's earlier life, or to Jude's voyages in his part in the mission of founding the early church.  A ship is also a well-known symbol of the Christian Church; this is often reflected in obvious ways in church architecture.