Saint Jude Thaddeus
Memorial:28 October (Roman Church); 19 June (Eastern Church)
Patronage: desperate situations; forgotten causes; hospital workers; hospitals; impossible causes; lost causes diocese of Saint Petersburg, Florida
Representation: axe; bearded man holding an oar; boat; boat hook; book; club; square rule; sword; nearly every image depicts him wearing a medallion with a profile of Jesus, and usually with a small flame above his head; often carries a pen or sits at a writing location to make reference to the canonical Epistle.
Saint Jude Thaddeus was one of the Twelve Apostles. He was a a brother of Saint James the Lesser, nephew of Joseph and Mary, and a blood relative of Our Savior, and reputed to look a lot like him. He may have been a fisherman. He preached in Judea, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Persia with Saint Simon. He wrote an Epistle (letter) which is in the New Testament.
He is the patron of lost or desperate causes, and several reasons are given for this patronage. The first, is that early Christians often confused him with the traitor Judas, and as a result of the confusion between the names, never prayed to him, and devotion to him became something of a lost cause. The second comes from his Epistle where he stressed that the faithful should persevere in the harsh and desperate environment faced by Christians in those times.
Jude was the one who at the Last Supper, asked the Lord why He would not manifest Himself to the world after His resurrection. Not much more is known of his life. He was martyred in Armenia which was then controlled by the Persians. He was beaten to death with a club, then beheaded postmortem. His relics are at Saint Peter's, Rome, at Rheims, and at Toulouse, France .
Copyright © 2005 Steve Smith. All rights reserved.
