Shine of Saint Jude in New Orleans
Saint Jude, Apostle

Feast Day: October 28
Patron of: impossible causes Invoked for: help in times of desperation
Symbols: Club, cloth with image of Jesus, flame over head,

“…in accordance with his surname Thaddeus [meaning generous or loving], he will show himself most willing to give help.” Saint Bridget of Sweden, fifteenth century

Saint Jude was one of the original twelve apostles of Jesus. During his lifetime, his compassion and love for others was profoundly evident. Now, thousands of years after his death, his relief aid in seemingly hopeless situations ensures his place as one of the most popular and invoked saints in the world.

Jude Thaddeus was said to be a cousin of Jesus and the brother of James the Lesser. As an apostle of Christ, Jude learned firsthand the power of God to bring about healing and protection for what some might call “lost causes.” The most intriguing example can be found in the legends of Edessa (a city in Mesopotamia). As the story goes, King Abgar suffered greatly from leprosy and, desperate for relief, wrote a letter to Christ, which read, “I have heard about you and the cures you effect, that you do this without medicaments or herbs, and that with a word you cause the blind to see, the lame to walk, lepers to be cleansed, and the dead to live again. Having heard all this, I have decided in my mind that you are either a god and have come down from heaven to do what you do, or you are the Son of God and so do these things . . .”

Jesus was happy that King Abgar believed in Him without even seeing Him; however, He did not have time to visit the king. When the king realized he would never see Christ Himself, he sent an artist to draw a portrait. The artist was so overcome with the radiance emanating from Christ’s eyes, his hands shook and he could not accomplish his task. Jesus took a cloth and wiped His face with it, leaving His image imprinted in the cloth. Jude was sent back to Edessa to present this portrait to the king who rubbed it on his own body and was instantly cured of his disease.

In a different version of the story, Jude presented the burial cloth of Christ to King Agbar by carrying the precious material seared with Christ’s image folded up as a portrait. The king was cured when he touched the shroud. His subsequent baptism by Jude established Christianity in Edessa. Jude’s role as a helper to the despondent was sealed, as was his influence in the Mideast region of the world. The shroud, of course, has become known as the Holy Shroud of Turin.

After the death, resurrection, and ascension of Christ, Jude and the apostle Simon were sent back to Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), Persia, Armenia, and southern Russia to preach. The men became popular with the local population for their keen intellect, clever dialogue, and the amusing ways in which they outwitted sorcerers and magicians in public discourses and arguments. When invited to choose, as was the custom of the day, how their losing antagonists were to be executed, Jude and Simon would reply, “We are not here to kill the living but to bring the dead back to life.” They would then joyfully preach the message of Christ, converting thousands at a time.

Jude and Simon were not without detractors, however, and in the Epistle of Jude, his only writings to survive him, Jude exhorts recent converts in the East in a.d. 60, to stay strong in the face of persecution and to persevere through harsh and difficult circumstances. These persecutions caught up with both Simon and Jude just five years later when they were martyred together for their evangelizing. Today, their relics are buried under the main altar of Saint Peter’s Basilica.

Over the centuries, Saint Jude became confused with Judas Iscariot, the apostle who betrayed Christ for thirty pieces of silver. In many instances, to avoid this confusion, he is referred to as “Thaddeus” in the writings of the evangelists. Because he shared a name with such a notorious character, few Christians invoked Saint Jude for help. The mystical saints Bernard of Clairvaux in the twelfth century and Bridget of Sweden in the fifteenth century were exceptions. According to a vision, Jesus told Saint Bridget of Sweden to dedicate an altar to Saint Jude, because “in accordance with his surname, Thaddeus [meaning generous or loving] he will show himself most willing to give help.”

Few Catholics took these words seriously until the nineteenth century when a tradition began that when Saint Jude would answer the most impossible of prayers, the petitioner in turn, must thank the saint in a public way. The advent of inexpensive newspapers made this obligation possible and to this day, weekly and daily periodicals all have their share of “Thank you Saint Jude” personal ads. Perhaps the grandest gesture of public thanks to this saint is the world famous Saint Jude’s Children Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. It was built by the entertainer Danny Thomas as a tribute to Jude for answering his prayers when he was struggling to support his family. This hospital serves children with “hopelessly incurable diseases” and has become a groundbreaking research institution, saving innumerable young lives on its premises and even more internationally through its discoveries. From its great success, the name Saint Jude has become a common name for research hospitals all over the world.

Since he was present at the Pentecost, Saint Jude is usually depicted with the flame of the Holy Spirit over his head. His principal attribute is the cloth with Christ’s image, sometimes displayed on his body in a medallion form. He carries the club or axe he was beaten to death with and also displays the palms of the martyr.
Prayer to Saint Jude
Saint Jude, glorious Apostle, faithful servant and friend of Jesus, The name of the traitor has caused you to be forgotten by many, But the true Church invokes you universally as the patron Of things despaired of; pray for me, that I may receive the consolations and the help of heaven in all my necessities, tribulations, and sufferings, particularly
(here make your request)
and that I may bless God with the elect throughout eternity. St. Jude, Apostle, martyr, and cousin of our Lord Jesus Christ, intercede for us.
Amen.

“I give myself to God. What I have is yours.”
Patron of: alcoholism, heart attack

A Portuguese mercenary who fought in several wars, sold slaves, and lived hard, John was known to “think with his heart” by acting impulsively. At the age of 40, retired from the army and a book dealer in Granada, he heard a sermon that changed his life. He became as extreme in his dedication to his religious life as he had once been to his life as a soldier. He tested the physical limits of his own heart by serving the sick and poor with an intense fervor. He is invoked by those plagued with heart conditions for protection against heart attacks.

Brought up by pious and simple people, John had left home for a life of adventure when he was still a young boy. He worked as a shepherd and as soon as he was able, he enlisted in an army regiment. By the time his regiment disbanded, John was weary of the immoral life he led as a soldier. When he went to find his parents, he was told by an uncle that they had both died grief stricken over his disappearance. John vowed to live a better life and began selling pious pictures from town to town. On the road to Granada he met a barefoot child on the road who he offered to carry. To his surprise the child became heavier and heavier. When John put the child down at a fountain, the child gave him the title he would always be known as, saying, “John of God, Granada shall be your cross,” before disappearing. It was in Granada that he opened his book store and heard the sermon of John of Avila which shattered his existence.

The thought of all the wrongs he committed in his life drove him to madness. Incarcerated in a filthy hospital, he suffered the mistreatment of the insane first hand.

As he recovered his sanity, he began helping the nursing staff. Upon his release, he devoted the rest of his life to the sick and destitute, never forgetting how terribly they were treated in the local institutions. He founded the Order of the Brother Hospitallers and opened a hospital, funding it by begging in the streets. When his hospital was burning down, he ran in and carried each patient out one by one. He is frequently depicted carrying a hospital patient. Because of this he is also considered a patron of firefighters. While recovering from an illness, John of God leapt into a river in an unsuccessful attempt at rescuing a drowning boy. He died on his 55th birthday from an over-exhausted heart.

The symbol of Granada is the pomegranate, it is also a fruit with many seeds, which John’s Order took as a symbol of their founder’s spiritual influence.

Novena Prayer to St. John of God for a Cure:

Saint John of God, heavenly Patron of the Sick, I come to you in prayer to seek your help in my present sickness. Through the love which Jesus had for you in choosing you for the sublime vocation of serving the sick, and through the tender affection with which the Blessed Virgin Mary placed upon your head a crown of thorns as a symbol of the sufferings you would undergo in the service of the sick to attain to your crown of glory, I beg you to intercede for me to Jesus and Mary that They may grant me a cure, if this should be according to the Will of God. How patiently you bore the sufferings of your own disease! Teach me to carry with cheerful resignation the cross that God has given me. Let me never complain or lose courage. Help me to understand that suffering is a very important means of sanctifying my soul, of atoning for my many sins, and of reaping a plentiful harvest of merit for Heaven. I trust in your great love for the sick and in the power of your intercession to help them. Help me, good St. John, and beg the God whose name you bear to touch me as He touched the sick while on earth, that through His almighty power health may return to my body. And as you derived strength in your own sufferings from the crucifix, so may I be able to say what you did to Jesus Crucified: “Lord, Thy thorns are my roses and Thy sufferings my paradise.”

Good Saint John, lover of those who suffer and special Patron of the Sick, I confidently place before you my earnest petition. (Mention your request.) I beg you to recommend my request to Mary, the Mother of Sorrows and Health of the Sick, that both Mary and you may present it to Jesus, the Divine Physician. Saint John of God, patron of the Sick and beloved of Jesus and Mary, pray to Them for me and obtain my request. (Three times.)
In honor of Saint John of God: Our Father, Hail Mary, Glory Be.
Saint John of God, Patron of the Sick, pray for us.

Andrea Barbiani 1708 -1779
St Peter Damian
1776
Oil on canvas
Biblioteca Classense, Ravenna

“As a monk, a bishop, and a saint, Peter Damian lived one of the Benedictine Rules completely: “Do not prefer anything to the love of Christ.” He died in 1072 and is considered to be a Doctor of the Church. St. Peter Damian helps us to remember that if we put Jesus first in our lives, the Lord will always guide us in living as his faithful disciples.”

“Pope Stephen X recognized Peter’s gifts and asked him to represent the Church in settling disputes and helping to stop practices that were preventing the Church from doing Christ’s work in the world. Peter was so skilled as a peacemaker and reformer that he advised seven popes and traveled to many places representing the Holy Father. He worked with priests, bishops, kings, and emperors—all to serve Jesus.” —RCL Benziger

Especially devoted to Our Blessed Mother, Saint Peter Damian wrote about the Blessed Virgin, as well as composed many prayers to her grace.

And thus Saint Peter Damian, reflecting on the great power of Mary, and begging her to take compassion on us, addresses her, saying:
“O, let thy nature move thee, let thy power move thee; for the more thou art powerful, the greater should thy mercy be.”
O Mary, our own beloved advocate, since thou hast so compassionate a heart, that thou canst not even see the wretehed without being moved to pity; and since, at the same time, thou hast so great power with God that thou canst save all whom thou dost protect; disdain not to undertake the cause of us poor miserable creatures who place all our hope
in thee.
If our prayers cannot move thee, at least let thine own benign heart do so; or, at least,
let thy power do so, since God has enriched thee with such great power, in order that the richer thou art in power to help us, the more merciful thou mayest be in the will to
assist us.

Prayer of Saint Peter Damian to the Blessed Virgin Mary 

O holy Virgin, 
Mother of God, 
help those who implore your assistance.
Turn toward us.
Have you perhaps forgotten us
because you have been elevated
to a position close to God?
No, certainly not. 


You know well in what danger you left us.
You know the miserable condition of your servants.
No, it would not benefit such great mercy
as yours to forget such great misery as ours.

Turn toward us, then,
with your power,
for He who is powerful
has made you omnipotent in heaven and on earth.
For you, nothing is impossible.
You can raise even those who are in despair
to a hope of salvation.
There more powerful you are,
the greater should be your mercy. 


Turn also to us in your love.
I know.
O Mary, that you are all kindness
and that you love us with a love
that no other love can surpass.
How often you appease the wrath of our Divine Judge,
when He is on the point of punishing us! 

All the treasures of the mercy of God
are in your hands.
You will never cease to benefit us, I know,
for you are only seeking an opportunity
to save all sinners
and to shower your mercies upon them.
Your glory is increased when,
through you,
penitents are forgiven and reach heaven. 


Turn, then, toward us,
so that we may also be able to go
and see you in heaven.
For the greatest glory that we can have,
after seeing God,
will be to see you,
to love you,
and to be under your protection.
So be pleased to grant our prayer;
for your beloved Son wishes to honour you
by refusing nothing that you ask. 
Amen.

| Labels: Doctor of the Church, Feast Day, Marian Devotion, Prayer, Saints

Our Lady of Lourdes is the patroness of France.
The feast day of Our Lady of Lourdes is February 11.

Bernadette Soubirous was an unlikely visionary. Her family had lost their business and were all but homeless. They were reduced to living in a dank former dungeon that had been evacuated by the authorities because it was considered too inhumane to house prisoners. At the age of fourteen Bernadette had not yet received her First Communion as she was considered slow witted and behind in her catechism studies. On February 11, 1858, the impoverished girl’s mother sent her, a sister, and a friend out to look for firewood. So that they would not be accused of stealing, the girls went to the outskirts of town, to an area near the Gave River known as Massabielle. Respectable citizens of the town of Lourdes avoided this place, considering it disgusting because pigs grazed there. According to local legend, it had been a place of pagan worship where ancient evils still lurked; many crossed themselves if they had to pass by it. Bernadette was congenitally ill with asthma, so the two younger girls waded across a mill stream to collect wood on the other side while she stayed behind. Not finding any wood on her side, she began to take off her stockings to join the others. She heard the sound of a storm starting to blow up; as she stood up straight she was puzzled why the trees remained totally still.

Bewildered, Bernadette looked around, and in her own words, “I looked across the mill stream to a niche above a cave in the rock of Massabielle. A rosebush on the edge of the niche was swaying in the wind. It was all that moved. All else was still. A golden cloud came out of the cave and flooded the niche with radiance. Then a lady, young and beautiful, exceedingly beautiful, the like of whom I had never seen, stood on the edge of the niche. She smiled and smiled at me, beckoning me to come closer as though she were my mother, and she gave me to understand in my soul that I was not mistaken. The lady was dressed in white, with a white veil on her head, and a blue sash at her waist. A rosary of white beads on a gold chain was on her right arm. On that cold winter’s day, her feet were bare, but on each foot was a golden rose radiant with the warmth of summer.”

Instinctively, Bernadette reached for her rosary for spiritual protection. But she found she could not lift her arm for the sign of the cross until the lady herself started to cross herself. After they made the sign of the cross together, Bernadette began to pray the rosary. The lady passed the beads through her fingers and silently followed her. When Bernadette had finished, the smiling lady bowed to her and disappeared.

That Sunday, Bernadette returned to the site with a group of friends after mass. The lady appeared, and Bernadette was the only one who could see or communicate with her. She sprinkled the lady with holy water, saying, “If you come from God, stay. If you don’t, go away.” The lady laughed and inclined her head to receive more water. Her friends were shocked at the physical transformation of Bernadette. She had fallen into a beautiful rapture without a trace of her asthma. When they threw a stone at her, she did not flinch. Frightened, that she might be in danger of losing her mind, they ran to get help. Those who came to their aid were amazed at the incredible change in Bernadette’s demeanor. They hardly recognized the rapturously happy, graceful young girl in front of them. A neighbor carried her to her mother’s house. Bernadette later said that the lady kept in front of her, slightly above her, only disappearing when Bernadette went inside the house. Her parents were angry with Bernadette for causing such a commotion, but those in the crowd who had witnessed her at the grotto advised them to believe her.
She made her third visit to the grotto on February 18, accompanied by two important women from town who insisted she try and write down everything the lady said. Bernadette began the rosary and the lady appeared, surrounded by light. Bernadette entered the grotto and the lady came down from the niche and stood beside her. When Bernadette asked her to please write down her name and what she wanted, the lady laughed.

For the first time she spoke to Bernadette, “Boulet aoue ra gracia de bie aci penden quinze dias?” She asked in the patois dialect of that region. (“Would you have the grace to come here for fifteen days?”) When Bernadette replied that she would have to ask her parents’ permission, the lady said, “I do not promise you happiness in this life, but in the next.” Then she added, “Go and tell the priests that a chapel must be built here.” Smiling, she disappeared.

As news spread through Lourdes about the apparitions, Bernadette’s visits to the grotto were accompanied by larger and larger crowds. The civil authorities felt compelled to take action and Bernadette was detained at the local police station for questioning. When she refused to admit that it was all a hoax or a ploy for attention, they began to threaten her family. The Church was also embarrassed and skeptical of the claims of what they considered to be a superstitious girl. They had no intention of giving these apparitions any credence. Bernadette never speculated on the lady’s identity, she always referred to her as Aquero, the patois word for indescribable being.

It was on February 25, during the ninth apparition, that Bernadette was told to go drink at the spring and wash in it. Thinking that the lady meant the river, Bernadette went toward the Gave but the lady called her back. She pointed at a spot beneath the rock. Bernadette later wrote, “I found some moisture there but it was mud. Three times I threw it away even though the lady said to drink it. Then I washed in it only to have my face besmeared with mud.” The large crowd that had gathered started jeering at the girl. Bernadette’s aunt, who was among them, was utterly humiliated. She smacked Bernadette in the face saying, “Stop your nonsense!” and sent her home. By the afternoon the muddy area was flowing with pure water. No one in Lourdes had ever seen a spring there before. Many who had been scoffing at Bernadette in the morning were drinking at the spring in the afternoon.

In subsequent apparitions, the lady gave Bernadette a secret prayer to say, which she never revealed to anyone. She asked for penitence and the conversion of sinners. As the crowds grew, the authorities again took Bernadette in for questioning, but she never wavered from her story, always referring to the lady as Aquero. In one apparition the lady was alighted on a rosebush, Bernadette feared that the sheer crush of the ever-growing crowd would harm Aquero. “I was afraid she might fall, but she kept on smiling at the people. She loved them, and she always seemed sorry to leave them.” At the thirteenth visit she repeated her request that Bernadette ask the priest for a procession to the grotto and for a chapel to be built.

Reluctantly, Bernadette returned to Father Peyramale the village priest. Frustrated and skeptical, he told her that if the lady in white wanted a chapel she should say who she was and she should make the wild rosebush in the niche blossom. It was after this visit that claims of miraculous healing were made by those who drank or washed in the spring. One was a dying two- year-old child who was immersed for fifteen minutes in the water. His family had his coffin prepared on one day and the next he was running around as if he had never been sick. On market day the crowd reached to over eight thousand people. It was Thursday, March 4, the date of the last of the promised fifteen day visits. All expected something extraordinary to happen. Her visit with the lady lasted forty-five minutes. When it was over, Bernadette merely extinguished her candle and went home. Nothing dramatic occurred: the rosebush did not bloom, the lady did not announce any message. Bernadette was content, unconcerned about the anticipation and unfulfilled emotions she had aroused in the crowd. For the next three weeks, she later wrote, “The people pestered me, the police watched me, and the public prosecutor almost crushed me.” Her family was continually harassed by the town authorities, and Bernadette was threatened with jail if she ever returned to the grotto. (“They forgot I was living in an unused police lockup with the entire family in one room.”)

On the night of March 24, she awoke with the familiar urge to return. At five in the morning of March 25, the Feast of the Annunciation, Bernadette returned to the grotto where the lady in white was waiting for her. Bernadette asked her identity several times. The lady only smiled. Finally, the fourth time she asked, “Aquero extended her hands toward the ground, swept them upwards to join them on her heart, raised her eyes, but not her head to heaven, leaned tenderly towards me and said, ‘Que soy era Immaculada Conceptiou.’ (I am the Immaculate Conception.) She smiled at me. She disappeared. I was alone.”

According to Bernadette, she had no idea what the lady meant when she said those words. She had to repeat them to herself over and over in order to remember them for the priest. Father Peyramale was astounded at this announcement. The Catholic tradition that Mary had been conceived without original sin so that she might be worthy to be the Mother of God had only been defined as church doctrine in 1854. It was scarcely an expression common to the average person of Lourdes, much less a girl of Bernadette’s social stature. Father Peyramale became Bernadette’s greatest defender as she had to face the onslaught of examinations by government officials, medical personnel, and church hierarchy. Regardless of threats, ridicule, and coersion, she never once altered her account of her story to any of them. “I do not ask you to believe, I only told you what I had seen.” Three eminent Parisian doctors declared that she was mentally and emotionally sound but that she suffered from asthma. (“My mother could have told them that and saved them the trouble.”)

The authorities closed down the grotto and threatened anyone visiting it with arrest. Attempts were made to have Bernadette committed to an insane asylum. Father Peyramale put an end to them by saying, “I know my duty as pastor of my parish and protector of my flock. Your own doctors find no abnormality in Bernadette. You will have to fell me to the ground, pass over my dead body and trample it underfoot, before you touch a hair of the child’s head.”

On July 16, Bernadette saw the lady in white for the last time. Since the grotto was off limits, she knelt in the meadow on the far side of the river. “I began my rosary and my lady stood in the grotto smiling at me. It was the Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel. She looked more beautiful than I had ever seen her. This would be the last time I would see her on this earth. . . . She left heaven in my heart and it has been there ever since.”

A church commission was set up to investigate the claims of miraculous healing by the spring water. Public opinion forced the reopening of the grotto, and it was approved as a shrine in 1862. Instead of a little chapel, a major basilica , Our Lady of Lourdes, was built on the site. Millions of pilgrims come every year, and it is the world’s most visited site dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Bernadette eventually joined the Sisters of Nevers to avoid the attention her presence created. Her Mother Superior disliked her and forbade her from ever mentioning the apparitions. Although her health steadily declined, she never took any interest in the healing powers of the water at the grotto. Bernadette’s written account of the apparitions, show Mary in a very light and loving manner. Like many visionaries, Bernadette enjoyed no special favors in this world. She remained sick all her life and died in 1879 at the age of thirty-five. When her body was exhumed in 1908, it was found to be uncorrupted. She was recognized as a saint by the Catholic Church in 1933.

Our Lady of Lourdes is depicted in white with a blue sash, holding a rosary. Bernadette always felt that Church-sanctioned artistic images of Mary in this apparition were totally wrong, insisting that the lady she saw was a young one, between the ages of twelve and fourteen.

There are four traditional gifts imparted by a pilgrimage to Lourdes: (1) The gift of the miraculous water, (2) the gift of healing, (3) the gift of reconciliation, and (4) the gift of friendship.

Novena to Our Lady of Lourdes