We would like to invite everyone to come and celebrate with us the Solemnity of St. Judas Thaddeus with a bilingual Mass on October 28th at 7:00 p.m. in St. Joseph Chapel. We would also like to invite everyone to bring their venerated images of St. Jude to be blessed at the end of the liturgy in order that our devotion may include the intercession of this apostle for an increase in faith in every member of our family. May we all grow in our love for Jesus and his Church.
Who was St. Judas Taddeus?
The Church celebrates St. Jude, the Apostle of Christ, and is known to be by the Gospels as “the brother of St. James.” St. Judas Thaddeus is not to be confused with Judas Iscariot, the apostle who betrayed Jesus and did not repent from his treasury.
The devotion to St. Jude in recent decades in various communities in the Catholic Church has morphed into expressions of piety and belief that the Church has had to correct. For example, in 2008, the Archdiocese of Mexico City had to issue a communication declaring some serious aberrations concerning the cult of St. Jude, which is often used by antisocial elements in society to gain favor within the community. St. Jude is not the patron saint of “delinquents and narcotraffickers,” and this devotion is not compatible with the Witchcraft or “Santeria” often dominated by the devotion to “La Santa Muerte” or “The Grim Reaper,” a phenomenon that does not belong any practice of the Catholic faith.
St. Jude is often considered to be the patron saint of those having impossible cases.
As is for the veneration of any saint, the Church distinguishes between “venerating a Saint” and “worshiping a Saint.” The Church does not worship saints; we venerate them (look at them as models of Christian discipleship and intercession). Saints, in and of themselves, are only human beings who have lived a heroic Christian life worthy of our respect and imitation, but they do not have any particular power of their own. All miraculous graces come from God alone! The Saints are members of the Church and, like the Church itself, is the mediator of God’s graces.