Story of St Jude
The Story of St Jude (1st century C.E.), Saint Jude also known as St. Judas or Jude Thaddeus, is regarded as one of Jesus’ Twelve Apostles. He is Jesus’ “brother” and the most likely author of the Epistle of Jude.
Various Christian churches consider Jude the Apostle to be a saint. For example, the Armenian Apostolic Church honors him alongside Saint Bartholomew. Roman Catholics revere him as the patron saint of dismal situations and misdirected causes. He can no longer be concerned about Judas Iscariot or any other Apostle who eventually betrayed Jesus. Their name is a Greek form of Judah, becoming well-known.
Who is St. Jude?
Within the story of St Jude, who was one of the Twelve Apostles and the younger brother of James the Less, we find he is a mystery of numerous kinds of discernment. He enters and exits the gospel tale in a calm historical past way, almost as if he’s actively attempting to drown his character in that of Christ rather than bringing attention to himself. This obscurity is one of the reasons he has remained unknown and forgotten for centuries.
Nonetheless, during the centuries since Jesus and his Apostles’ lives and deaths, a huge amount of subculture and mythology has grown up around the Life of St. Jude. Historians may put together various shards of material to provide at the very least a comprehensible picture of this exceptional saint. Although we have carefully examined the evidence on St. Jude, our goal here isn’t always to provide precise or clinical recordings of him.
Another gospel account indicates that Mary, the mother of James and Jude, had witnessed Jesus during his traveling ministry around Galilee. In the end, she witnessed the Savior’s crucifixion and death (Mark 15:40, Mattew 17:56). In John’s Gospel, we encounter a positive Mary, Clopas’ wife, who has a relationship with the Sorrowful Mother beneath the cross (John 19:25).
Some have attempted to establish Mary of Clopas as the identical man or woman as the mother of James and Joses in one of several attempts to harmonize the various gospel tales (and consequently of Jude). In contrast to this idea, the Father of James and Jude is commonly referred to as Alphaeus, and nothing in the Gospels indicates his name.
Besides, Mary becomes a commonplace call. However, it is apparent that the list of females who experienced the Lord’s Passion is insufficient and differs from each gospel subculture. In any case, we acknowledge that Mary, the mother of James and Jude, became a gift on the ardour and dying of the Lord, and that, within the Gospel of John, not only the Mother of Jesus but also the other ladies who followed her were offered as model believers.
Jude is referred to as “Thaddaeus” in the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, possibly to distinguish him from the traitor Judas Iscariot because Judas and Jude are the same names in both Aramaic (Yehuda) and Greek (Cloudas). In certain early copies of Matthew’s Gospel, Jude is sometimes referred to as “Lebbaeus.”
The name “Thaddaeus” appears to be derived from the Aramaic phrase Taddal, which means “the broad-chested (beneficent or courageous) man,” whereas “Lebbaeus,” derived from the Hebrew phrase Feb (heart), means “hearty” or “of the heart,” implying that each name may be distinct ways of pronouncing nearly the same thing. Being Jesus’ cousin, Jude should have been born and raised near the Lord.
They both resided in or around Nazareth (Mark 6:3). Although we don’t know which was born first, they should be around the same age. Both of them most likely performed together inside the house of Joseph or Alphaeus; both of them frequently went to synagogue offerings with their parents; each of them stretched out to life, to the splendor of the Galilean fields, to the melody of the birds, to the sentiments of puberty.
We’re informed that Jesus grew in knowledge, stature, and desire as He interacted with God and His creations (Luke 2:52). His humanity extended beyond the internal softness that led to a massive love and reverence for his heavenly parent. Jude should be a testament to Jesus’ perfectly human growth. Like every other prominent Jew of his day, Jude should have found an alternative. The Jewish people have always felt compelled to better the created world. Furthermore, socioeconomic circumstances forced most people to work hard to make a livelihood. We no longer know who Jude’s replacement has become.
Marriage was seen as a religious requirement by Jews, and a man was expected to marry around the age of 18. Later church tradition, which always depicted John as the virginal disciple, also emphasized that the other members of the Twelve Apostles were all married men. Jesus and the groom’s relatives and friends were probably definitely present at the wedding celebrations.
Disciple and Friend of Jesus
When Jesus was around 30 years old, he left his family and traveled to Judea, where a prophet, John, known as John the Baptist, predicted the coming “Day of the Lord” and baptized people who embraced his message of repentance. John also baptized Jesus in the Jordan River. He promptly returned to Galilee to begin his nomadic ministry.
He announced the emergence of God’s reign—decisive God’s involvement in human records to store all humans—and pleaded with humans to repentance to simply accept God’s gracious invitation. It became a liberating message that pressed the revelation of God’s kindness in a manner distinct from John’s furious preaching. Jesus announced the remission of sins and cured many sick people. God’s grace truly transformed into turning into the seeing of their midst.
On this mission to communicate God’s love, Jesus swiftly began searching out fellow travelers. A group of Galileans, including men and women, began following him and became his followers. St. Jude and Mary, Jude’s mother, were among them, who came and departed, ministering to Jesus, the Master. Jude had to make the difficult decision to leave his wife and their two younger children.
Jude, like Peter, the two Jameses, John, Mary Magdalen, and diverse ladies like the widow of Chuza, learned a lot from Jesus about the heavenly father’s mercy and providence, about generosity, about neighborly love, and particularly about love for sinners, the outcast, and the sick. Not alone did Jesus enter synagogues, but also tax collectors’ homes. He traversed the dusty roadways of Galilee and the surrounding geographical region with Jesus and sat alongside the Lake of Gennesaret. Frequently, he had to shield his cousin from the burdens that pressed in on him. This became his schooling time for the apostleship.
Jude had become a friend of Jesus in a way he had never been before. According to Mark, Jesus summoned the Twelve Apostles “to be with him” (Mark 3:14). There was a strong bond of communion between Jesus and those men who shared his labor and tiredness and who looked forward with self-belief and yearning to the reign of divine favor.
According to Mark, Jesus stated on one occasion that his legitimate circle of relatives comprised of people like his disciples, men, and women who have been fulfilling God’s will—who established his message that the Father wishes to keep us (Mark 3:34; Mark 3:35). Jude had progressed from being a fleshly relative of Jesus to bringing his spiritual sibling.
The Ministry of God’s Grace
One day, Jesus gathered the Twelve Apostles and sent them out into the arena to announce the presence of God’s land and to make that kingdom visible by healing the sick (Mark 6:7, Mattew 10:6; Matthew 10:7; Matthew 10:8). They moved forward by way of. We don’t know who Jude became during his first ministry.
At some point in towns and villages, they preached God’s gracious offer of salvation and pleaded with their listeners for repentance. They treated the ill and cultivated the hospitality of those who accepted them. They, however, refused to be reimbursed for their services.
They specifically directed their message to the location of Israel’s strayed sheep. Of course, they mentioned Jesus. Their experience should have been comparable to that of the 70 disciples; Luke alone provides an account (Luke 10:17; Luke 10:18; Luke 10:19; Luke 10:20). They returned from their mission exhausted but also ecstatic; they’d seen that the devils had bowed to them and that the sick had been cured when they called Jesus’ name.
Tradition and legend
Saint Jude proclaimed the Gospel throughout Judea, Samaria, Idumaea, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Libya, among several other locations. He is also claimed to have been to Beirut and Edessa. On the other hand, the latter’s emissary is Thaddeus of Edessa, Addai, one of the seventy. Nicephorus Callistus, a 14th-century writer, accords Jude to the position of the bridegroom at Cana’s wedding. According to history, St. Jude was born straight into their Jewish family in Paneas, a Galilean city reconstructed during the Roman Empire and renamed Caesarea Philippi.
Like practically all of his contemporaries in that region, they most likely spoke both Greek and Aramaic and worked as a farmer by trade. According to mythology, St. Jude transformed into the son of Clopas and Mary of Clopas, the Virgin Mary’s sister. According to legend, Jude’s father, Clopas, was crucified for his straightforward and ardent commitment to the resurrected Christ.
Although Saint Gregory the Illuminator is credited as the “Apostle to the Armenians” because he baptized King Tiridates III of Armenia in 301, converting the Armenians, the Apostles Jude, and Bartholomew historically appear as the first to bring Christianity to Armenia and are thus commemorated as client saints of the Armenian Apostolic Church. This culture is tied to the Saint Thaddeus Monastery (now located in northern Iran) and the Saint Bartholomew Monastery (now located in southern Turkey), both built-in Armenia.
The Last Journey
According to the famous traditions we had been following, St. Jude persevered to make missionary trips for many more years, changing substantial numbers of humans in Mesopotamia, Armenia, Persia, and probably even southern Russia.
His divine cousin changed his mind during the final journey and decided to ship him away. An idolatrous crowd attacked him, probably incited by Zeroes and Arfaxat, and bludgeoned him to death with clubs. Almost 20 centuries later, the Apostle is still shown with membership in remembrance of his martyrdom.
Another symbol associated with St. Jude is the axe since after being clubbed to death, he was beheaded with an axe. A flame is also frequently depicted flying over St. Jude’s head, suggesting that he became one of the Apostles on whom the Holy Spirit fell as tongues of flame; it also represents the presence of tongues that the Apostles were given at the time.
Both Simon and Jude’s remains have rested at the mother church of Christendom, St. Peter’s in Rome, for centuries. As far back as 1548, we have a record that Pope Paul III granted a plenary indulgence to all those who visited St. Jude’s tomb on his feast day, October 28.
The historian Eusebius, quoting Hegesippus this time, recounts a legend about Jude’s grandsons. It appears that Emperor Domitian discovered that there were relatives of Jesus’ family (and hence of the Davidic line) residing in Palestine. He summoned them to stand before him and questioned their place in life and their beliefs.
They were little farmers who subsisted and paid taxes by farming small parcels of land. When Domitian inquired about Christ and his kingdom, Jude’s descendants responded that Christ was a spiritual kingdom. The emperor released them, and the persecution of Christians ended soon after. When the grandsons of Jude returned to their country, they continued their work of heading local churches in Palestine, where they were recognized and regarded as relatives and witnesses of the Lord.
Saint Jude Patronage
There are many patron saints and Saint Jude is the “patron saint of lost causes.” This story stems from the belief that few Christians summoned him because they were scared of praying to Christ’s betrayer, Judas Iscariot because their names are similar. As a result of being ignored, Jude became fairly eager to aid anybody who asked for his help, even going so far as to intercede in the direst of situations. The Church also wanted to encourage devotion to this “forgotten” Apostle, stating that Saint Jude would intervene in any hopeless cause to display his goodness and enthusiasm for Christ.
The Chicago Police Department, Customs Officers, the Clube de Regatas do Flamengo (a soccer team in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil), and two St Jude’s GAA teams, the first in Templeogue Dublin 6W and the second in Southampton and Bournemouth are all named after Saint Jude (U.K.). Others who benefit from his services include individuals in need and hospitals. One of his namesakes is St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee, which has helped numerous children with terminal illnesses and their families since its foundation in 1962.
Death and remains
Saint Jude was martyred around 65 A.D. in Beirut, in the Roman province of Syria, with the Apostle Simon the Zealot, with whom he is commonly identified. He is commonly shown gripping an axe in photos, reflecting how he was slain.
According to the Golden Legend, the saints’ acts, and martyrdom were recorded in an Acts of Simon and Jude, which was among the collection of passions and legends traditionally associated with the legendary Abdias, bishop of Babylon, and said to have been translated into Latin by his disciple Tropaeus Africanus.
According to one tradition, Saint Jude’s remains were transferred from Beirut to Rome and deposited in a tomb in St. Peter’s Basilica, a popular pilgrimage site for Christians. His ashes are deposited under the grand altar in the left transept of St. Peter’s Basilica, in the same tomb as the Apostle Simon the Zealot.
These were moved here on December 27, 1665. Another popular tradition states that until the mid-15th century, the remains of St. Jude were preserved at an Armenian monastery on an island in Kyrgyzstan’s Issyk-Kul Lake’s northern portion. Later accounts argue whether the ruins are still there or transported to a considerably more isolated fortress in the Pamir Mountains.
A simple ossuary with the inscription “Judas Thaddaeus” (o ) was discovered in Kefar Barukh, Jezreel Valley, together with remains of four uninscribed ossuaries. Lamps and other earthenware dated the site to the early second century.
Conclusion The Story of St Jude
Unlike Peter and John, Apostle Jude was one of Jesus’ most secretive and little-known disciples. He was only mentioned a few times in the Synoptic Gospels (Matthew, Mark, and Luke), the Gospel of John, and the book of Acts. The two Judes (or Judases) completed Jesus’ circle of disciples, although they were identified by their surnames, Iscariot and Thaddeus.
His identity became more complicated when some verses named him the brother of Jesus and James (Matthew 13:55; Mark 6:3), while another verse designated him as the son of James (Matthew 13:55; Mark 6:3; Luke 6:16). According to tradition, he was also identified as the son of Clopas and Mary, the Virgin Mary’s cousin.
The brief Epistle bearing his name, written between 65 and 80 A.D., was attributed to Jude. The Epistle, written to unknown recipients, highlighted the dangers of believing in false teachers and concluded with a request to remain faithful in the Christian faith.
Apart from this Epistle, every additional knowledge about Jude the Apostle is derived only from tradition. His missions in the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Cyrenaica (Libya) and his return to Jerusalem in 62 A.D. to assist his brother, St. Simeon, as Bishop of Jerusalem, are examples of this.
He died as a martyr in Syria and another apostle, Simon, the Zealot, and was venerated as the patron saint of desperate causes and situations. His feast day is celebrated every October 28.
Reference The Story of St Jude
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jude_the_Apostle
https://stjudedetroit.org/st-jude-biography/
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Jude_the_Apostle
https://shrineofstjude.org/saint-jude-thaddeus-lazano/
https://amazingbibletimeline.com/blog/jude-thaddeus-apostle/