Relic of St. Jude, patron of desperate causes, will be in Bloomfield church starting Sunday
St. Thomas the Apostle Church in Bloomfield will host three days dedicated to St. Jude with a Mission Mass, veneration of a relic of St. Jude from the Dominican Shrine of St. Jude in Chicago, and St. Jude oil blessings.
St. Jude is well known among Catholics as the patron saint of hopeless causes and desperate situations. The faithful will be able to venerate the arm relic of St. Jude from the shrine on evenings Sept. 10-12.
Mission preaching will be held on Sunday and Monday, Sept. 10 and 11, at 7 p.m. and a St. Jude Mass will be held on Tuesday, Sept. 12 at 7 p.m. Oil blessings and venerations will be held on all evenings.
Father Mike Ford O.P., director of the shrine, will present the mission preaching and the Mass.
“This is a rare opportunity for our church and for the parishioners of surrounding churches to share the message of St. Jude – to keep ourselves in God’s love even during the tough times,” Patrice Maher, pastoral associate, said.
St. Jude Thaddaeus was a brother of St. James the Less, a relative of Jesus, and one of the 12 Apostles of Jesus. He should not be confused with Judas, who betrayed Christ.
St. Jude’s body was brought to Rome and left in a crypt in St. Peter’s Basilica soon after his death. Today his bones can be found in the left transept of St. Peter’s Basilica under the main altar of St. Joseph in a tomb he shares with the remains of the apostle Simon the Zealot, according to catholic.org.
Pilgrims came to St. Jude’s grave to pray and many reported a powerful intercession, leading to the title, “The Saint for the Hopeless and the Despaired.” Two Saints, St. Bridget of Sweden and St. Bernard, had visions from God asking them to accept St. Jude as “The Patron Saint of the Impossible,” according to catholic.org.
And St. Jude’s New Testament letter stresses that the faithful should persevere in the most difficult of circumstances just as their forefathers had done before them.
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.
“People also realized 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,” according to the Shrine’s website.
After his permanent internment in St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome with the other Apostles, his forearm was encased in a silver reliquary and located for many centuries in Armenia. At the beginning of the 18th century, Armenian Dominican Missionaries left Armenia because of the Moslem persecution and brought the relic to Smyrna, Turkey. After another round of persecutions, the relic was given to the Dominicans in Turin, Italy.
In 1949, the Dominican Province of St. Peter Martyr in Turin presented the relic to the Dominican Shrine of St. Jude in Chicago on the 20th anniversary of the Shrine’s dedication to St. Jude. They are the Dominican Province of St. Albert the Great, also known as the Dominican Central Province of the U.S.
It is reportedly the largest relic of an apostle located outside of Europe. From time to time the relic is taken on tour for special events like Solemn Novenas, healing, and prayer services across the U.S. The shrine also has three much smaller relics of St. Jude.
In the U.S., St. Jude is also known for being the patron saint of St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, a cancer treatment center founded by actor Danny Thomas.
The church is located at 60 Byrd Ave., Bloomfield. For more information call 973-338-9190. Statues, rosaries, medals, and St. Jude oil will be available for purchase.
Featured image: This silver reliquary of St. Jude the Apostle is seen in an undated photo at the Dominican Shrine of St. Jude Thaddeus in Chicago. The reliquary contains bones from the forearm of St. Jude. (CNS photo/courtesy Dominican Shrine of St. Jude Thaddeus)
