September 21, 2023

‘I feel he’s coming to bless us,’ says pastor at parish hosting St. Jude relic

NATIONAL
By Barb Umberger, OSV News

This wooden, arm-shaped reliquary holds bones from an arm of St. Jude the Apostle, which began a nine-month tour of U.S. in Chicago Sept. 9, 2023. After stops in three other Illinois parishes and three in Wisconsin, the relic went to Minnesota, including St. Jude of the Lake Church in Mahtomedi Sept. 20. Six sites in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis were hosting the relic Sept. 18-23. (OSV News photo/courtesy Father Carlos Martins)

ST. PAUL, Minn. (OSV News) — Father Chad Van Hoose, pastor of St. Jude of the Lake in Mahtomedi, said being one of six sites in the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis to host a relic of St. Jude the Apostle is historic.

Having the relic of the parish’s patron saint present Sept. 20, “let alone one of the 12 Apostles … is unbelievable,” he said. According to Treasures of the Church, a nonprofit ministry of the church, it is the first time the relic has left Italy.

St. Jude of the Lake was one of six parishes around the archdiocese scheduled to host the relic Sept. 18-23.

The relic displayed and venerated at all six parish churches — and all the churches on its U.S. tour — is “an arm” of St. Jude, Father Van Hoose said.

Bones from the arm are housed inside a “wooden, arm-shaped reliquary in the gesture of giving a blessing,” according to the website maintained by Treasures of the Church. The arm was separated from “the greater portion” of the saint’s remains “several centuries ago” and placed in the reliquary, according to the website. It was last opened during the time of Cardinal Francesco Marchetti Selvaggiani, vicar general for the Archdiocese of Rome from 1931 to 1951. His red seals enclose it.

The reliquary is inside a glass case for protection and security.

Father Van Hoose said since he has been at the parish in Mahtomedi, some “big pushes” have been made to invite parishioners to learn more about St. Jude. The parish logo, for example, was rebranded when Father Van Hoose arrived three years ago; now it is “the saint’s apostolic symbol, which is the ship,” he said.

The parish installed a mural of St. Jude on the building’s exterior last summer — original art “printed on tiles.” And a parishioner built a new shrine around the parish’s statue of St. Jude in the gathering space, Father Van Hoose said.

“And now I feel as if he’s coming to bless us,” he told The Catholic Spirit, the archdiocesan newspaper, in an interview ahead of the relic’s stop at his church.

The tour began in Chicago Sept. 9 at St. John Cantius Church, and after stops in three other Illinois parishes and three in Wisconsin, the relic went to Minnesota. It will travel next to Sioux Falls, South Dakota.

Scheduled stops for the remainder of 2023 include parishes in Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. The 2024 stops into May have not yet been announced. The relic will make stops in 100 cities in all.

Besides displaying the relic and holding public veneration, each church on the tour also celebrates a special Mass.

The tour comes to a nation “still reeling from the aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic,” with many grieving lost loved ones and others suffering effects of “long-COVID,” long-term isolation and economic hardship, said Father Carlos Martins, a priest of the Companions of the Cross religious community, who is director of Treasures of the Church. “The apostle’s visit is an effort by the Catholic Church to give comfort and hope to all who need it,” he said in a news release about the tour.

After Jesus’ death and resurrection, St. Jude traveled “throughout Mesopotamia, Libya and Persia with St. Simon, preaching and building up the foundations of the early Church,” according to the website for the National Shrine of St. Jude. It describes him as the patron saint of hope and impossible causes.

“Jude gives hope to those in adversity, affliction and anxiety,” according to the website. “Millions have found solace after seeking his assistance and finding their prayers answered.”

Accounts of St. Jude’s martyrdom vary but indicate he was either shot with arrows, beaten with clubs, thrust with a lance, stabbed with a halberd or crucified.

According to Treasures of the Church, his body was buried in Beirut, Lebanon, and later transferred to a crypt in the original St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome. Today, his remains are housed in the current basilica below the main altar of St. Joseph, within a tomb containing the remains of the Apostle Simon.

Editor’s Note: The detailed St. Jude relic tour schedule is available at apostleoftheimpossible.com.

Barb Umberger is a reporter for The Catholic Spirit, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis.