Why do people pray to St. Jude?

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Catholics have a long tradition of praying to the saints and this tradition has sometimes been misunderstood. With all Christians we keep the First Commandment and adore only the Most Blessed Trinity. Praying to the saints is not a substitute for praying to God, whom we acknowledge to be the source of everything.

We pray to the saints because they are our older sisters and brothers who have gone through what we ourselves are experiencing now. We ask them to remind God that it was by His grace that they triumphed over life’s difficulties and that we today need that same grace.

Even though we have a long tradition of praying to the saints (or more precisely asking the saints to pray to the Lord our God for us!), it is only in our own times that St. Jude has become a popular patron. Why? In the past, people sometimes confused St. Jude with Judas Iscariot, but people now realize they are alike in name only!

And people realized too that the story of St. Jude is very often like their own: people sometimes ignored and misunderstood – people struggling to accept their call to holiness and the offer of forgiveness – people finding it hard to believe that God is always faithful to his promises.

If any of those phrases describe you, welcome!

Meditation: St. Jude, Advocate of Difficult Cases

Excerpted from Fr. Richard O'Keefe, O.P.

St. Jude was not only a follower of Jesus but his friend as well. His close relationship to Jesus not only changed his life but also made him a powerful advocate on our behalf. From Jesus he learned about God's boundless compassion and infinite power. He learned not to doubt God's wisdom but confidently to trust divine mercy. Sometimes our suffering can make us forget, even despair of, God's love and provision for us. We ask, "Why has this happened to me? Where is the Lord when I need him?" We might even wonder whether He hears our prayer. We go to St. Jude because we believe that he is a man of faith and understands that nothing is impossible for God. From Jesus he would have learned this. He believed what Jesus had told him at the Last Supper: "If you ask for anything in my name, I will do it." (John 14:14) He heard Jesus say, "...with God everything is possible." (Mark 10:27). And, harkening to those words, we ourselves regain our balance; we find the strength to go on trusting in God's wisdom and mercy.

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Happy Easter

John 3:16-17

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.

Happy Easter, and God bless.

Today is Good Friday

Matthew 27:32-61

Now as they came out, they found a man of Cyrene, Simon by name. Him they compelled to bear His cross. And when they had come to a place called Golgotha, that is to say, Place of a Skull, they gave Him sour wine mingled with gall to drink. But when He had tasted it, He would not drink.

Then they crucified Him, and divided His garments, casting lots, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet:

“ They divided My garments among them,
And for My clothing they cast lots.”

Sitting down, they kept watch over Him there. And they put up over His head the accusation written against Him:

THIS IS JESUS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

Then two robbers were crucified with Him, one on the right and another on the left. And those who passed by blasphemed Him, wagging their heads and saying, “You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross.”

Likewise the chief priests also, mocking with the scribes and elders, said, “He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’”

Even the robbers who were crucified with Him reviled Him with the same thing.

Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land. And about the ninth hour Jesus cried out with a loud voice, saying, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” that is, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?”

Some of those who stood there, when they heard that, said, “This Man is calling for Elijah!” Immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with sour wine and put it on a reed, and offered it to Him to drink. The rest said, “Let Him alone; let us see if Elijah will come to save Him.”

And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit.

Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.

So when the centurion and those with him, who were guarding Jesus, saw the earthquake and the things that had happened, they feared greatly, saying, “Truly this was the Son of God!”

And many women who followed Jesus from Galilee, ministering to Him, were there looking on from afar, among whom were Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James and Joses, and the mother of Zebedee’s sons.

Now when evening had come, there came a rich man from Arimathea, named Joseph, who himself had also become a disciple of Jesus. This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate commanded the body to be given to him. When Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his new tomb which he had hewn out of the rock; and he rolled a large stone against the door of the tomb, and departed. And Mary Magdalene was there, and the other Mary, sitting opposite the tomb.

Flicker of hope is sold in Aisle 18

Written by E. J. Montini, a columnist at The Arizona Republic (Arizona, U.S.A.), on March 23, 2009 (source article link).

In the Albertson's grocery store near my home, the shelves on Aisle 18-B are neatly stocked with jars of salsa, bags of corn chips, spices, cans of beans, bags of flour, rows of spices, snack cakes, soda and hope.

The last item sells for $1.79.

In better times, a hearty meal would offer more sustenance than hope. But these days, with so many men and women losing their jobs, their health insurance and their homes, shoppers who are starved for mental and spiritual comfort find nourishment in several rows of 8-inch votive candles available in Aisle 18-B.

In just about every Catholic Church in Phoenix, there is an alcove or side altar where there is a bank of candles in glass containers. Often they are displayed in a series of small steps before a statue or icon.

In the church my family attended when I was a kid, these "vigil lights," as my mother called them, were in front of a statue of Mary the mother of Jesus. It was the one place in our church where I felt comfortable.

The enormous crucifix above the altar, with its bleeding, suffering Jesus, frightened me. As did the stained-glass images of saints that lined the upper reaches of the church. Their glass eyes seemed to focus on a young sinner no matter which pew he settled into.

One of the small comforts of my youthful churchgoing experience was the opportunity to light a candle. But it was not done casually. My mother would say that lighting a candle was a way of asking God for a little extra attention. It might be for ourselves or for someone we knew, someone sick, someone in need, someone in trouble. The candle represented a promise to put more prayerful devotion into this particular request. As long as the candle burned, the invocation was being repeated.

For all of the time I've shopped at the Albertsons, the most popular votive candle featured a likeness of the Virgin of Guadalupe. In this part of the country, the primary market for such items is our large Latino population.

But lately other saints also have become popular. St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes, for instance. And St. Simon, who may have been St. Jude's partner but whose prayer, printed on his candle, makes him seem more like an enforcer than a saint.

It reads, in Spanish and in English:

"Oh powerful St. Simon, I humbly come to you. Let your spirit help me in all actions and in any dangerous circumstances. If it is love, you will hold the person I like. If it is a business, you will not allow it to fail because evil can not have more power than your spirit. If it is an enemy, you will defeat him. Oh, powerful St. Simon, I offer you your cigar, your tortilla, your drink and your candles if you help me with any dangerous circumstance I may encounter. For any debts that I cannot currently pay, let the judge be defeated and on my side upon invoking your name. I ask of you, in the name of the One you sold for thirty coins that were given to the needy to let everything be forgotten; and in this manner I want you to perform the miracles I request."

I asked John Tillotson, of the St. Jude Candle Co. in Houston which made the St. Simon candle, how his business is doing.

He told me, "With the economy the way it is, we're feeling the pinch as well as everyone else. But we can see in sales that people gravitate to those saints who speak to their situation. A lot of people are hurting and are seeking help."

Do the candles work? I asked.

He paused, then said, "I can tell you that they're a comfort to a lot of folks."

More than that. When lit, the candles prove that longing is tangible. That aspiration is real. That there is such a thing as a flicker of hope.

April Messages of Thanks

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