MADISON — The Office of Hispanic Ministry for the Diocese of Madison will be hosting the visit and veneration of the arm of Saint Jude the Apostle on Thursday, Sept. 14, at St. Maria Goretti Church, 5313 Flad Ave., Madison.
Veneration of the relic will be from 1 to 10 p.m. with a Bilingual Mass to be celebrated by Bishop Donald J. Hying of Madison at 7 p.m.
Mark your calendars to attend this once-in-a-lifetime veneration and help spread the word by sharing this with families and friends.
St. Jude, the Apostle
St. Jude, one of the 12 Apostles, was born into a Jewish family in Paneas, a town in the Galilee region of ancient Palestine, the same area where Jesus grew up.
He probably spoke Greek and Aramaic, like many people in that area, and he was a farmer by trade.
Jude was described by St. Matthew (13:55) as being one of the “brethren” of Jesus, meaning a cousin or blood relative of Jesus. Jude had several brothers, including St. James, who was another of the original Apostles.
His own first name, “Jude,” means giver of joy, while “Thaddeus,” another name he was called, means generous and kind.
He began preaching the Good News of Jesus to Jews throughout Galilee, Samaria, and Judea.
Around A.D. 37, St. Jude went to Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq) and became a leader of the Church of The East that St. Thomas established there.
St. Jude traveled throughout Mesopotamia, Libya, Turkey, and Persia with St. Simon, preaching and converting many people to Christianity.
St. Jude died a martyr of God in Persia or Syria around A.D. 65.
After his death, his body was brought back to Rome and placed in a crypt beneath St. Peter’s Basilica. His last mortal remains still lie there today.
After his martyrdom, pilgrims came to his grave to pray, and many of them experienced the powerful intercessions of St. Jude.
This is how he got the title, “The saint for the hopeless and the despaired”.
St. Bridget of Sweden and St. Bernard had visions from God asking each to accept St. Jude as “The patron saint of the impossible”.
Pope Paul III, in a brief dated September 22, 1543, granted a plenary indulgence to all who would visit St. Jude’s tomb on the day commemorating his death, October 28, the day of his feast.
Today, more than ever before, the merit of Jude Thaddeus is being revived in people’s minds and hearts.
Veneration within the Hispanic community
The first important manifestation of widespread public veneration of St. Jude in the western hemisphere took place in 1911 in Chile.
There, the Claretian Missionaries, founded by St. Anthony Claret in Spain less than a century before, built a large shrine to the apostle, a shrine that still attracts many petitioners even today.
From this shrine in Chile, devotion has spread to all the South American countries.
In the United States, the Claretian Missionaries in Chicago also established a shrine to St. Jude in 1929.
Called the National Shrine of St. Jude, it was the first major shrine dedicated to him in this country.
The devotion to St. Jude began to have success among migrant Mexican women and he acquired the patronage of difficult causes in that community.
His popularity grew so much in Chicago that migrants in Mexico began to know about San Judas.
Then, in the 1950s, the Claretians began to promote this veneration in Mexico. In the 1960s, the Temple of San Hipólito was remodeled and in that intervention, the altar to San Judas Tadeo was built.
St. Jude, pray for us!
The content of this article was taken from the St. Jude Shrine of the West and the National Shrine of St. Jude websites.