This Week We Will Read the Book of Daniel
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October 28 is the Feast of Ss. Simon and Jude Thaddeus. Today, I want to focus on the latter.
As the old St. Jude Novena Prayer put it, “the name of the traitor has caused you to be forgotten by many.” He should not be confused with Judas Iscariot, the apostle who betrayed Jesus. If fidelity to the end is the mark of a Christian, then Jude was faithful: he died a martyr. He is usually depicted with an axe or club, the method of his execution.
Christian iconography (the conventions of Christian art) also usually depict St. Jude with a flame over his head and an image of Christ on his breast. The flame alludes to the Holy Spirit, who descended in the form of flame on the Apostles at Pentecost. The image of Christ refers to a tradition that the king of Edessa (now in Turkiye) was afflicted with leprosy and asked for a painting of Jesus. It’s said Our Lord pressed his face to a cloth and gave it to St. Jude who brought it to Abgar of Edessa. Abgar was healed and converted to Christianity. We see clear allusions here to the tradition of Veronica’s Veil and to the healing by Elisha of the Syrian leper Naaman, after which the latter promises “never again make burnt offerings and sacrifices to any other god but the Lord” (II Kings 5:17).
One of the short epistles in the New Testament, warning against the dangers of false teachers, is attributed to St. Jude.
St. Jude is regarded as the patron of hopeless cases and of things despaired of. Novenas to St. Jude, seeking assistance in difficult life situations, were commonplace in the United States even in the 1960s and 1970s. (It’s not by accident that Danny Thomas, the Maronite Catholic who founded the famous children’s research hospital, put it under the patronage of St. Jude. It should be noted, however, that St. Jude Research Hospital is not a Catholic facility and some of its staff participate in embryonic research). The novena and other prayers to St. Jude can be found on the website of the St. Jude Shrine, conducted by the Pallottine Fathers in Baltimore, here: https://stjudeshrine.org/prayers_to_st_jude/
Our saint is illustrated in this etching [https://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/394032] by the Frenchman Etienne Brion, dating from about 1700. The saint is captured in prayer. Beside him are two things: the axe that would be the instrument of his martyrdom, and an open book alluding to his Epistle. At the bottom of the etching, in French, is a quotation from verse 25 of the Epistle: “to the only God, our savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord be glory, majesty, power, and authority ….”
Why not get to know St. Jude, cultivating a devotion to a faithful heavenly patron who, though often forgotten, will not forget you.
John Grondelski (PhD Fordham) was former associate dean of the School of Theology, Seton Hall University in New Jersey. He is a Catholic theologian with special interests in moral theology and the thought of St. John Paul II. All views are his own.
