MADISON — Fr. Andy McAlpin, OP, pastor of Blessed Sacrament Parish in Madison is inviting all of the faithful to a parish mission with Fr. Michail Ford, OP, director of the Dominican Shrine of St. Jude Thaddeus in Chicago.
“Father Mike will preach at all of our Masses on November 26 and 27, and he will preach in the church at 7 p.m. on Monday and Tuesday, Nov. 28 and 29. The mission concludes on Wednesday, Nov. 30, with a Healing Mass at 7 p.m., which will include an opportunity to venerate a relic of the arm of St. Jude,” Father McAlpin said.
Blessed Sacrament Parish is located at 2121 Rowley Ave. in Madison. Its weekend Masses are held on Saturday evening at 5 p.m., and Sunday morning at 8 and 10 a.m. The Sunday morning Masses are livestreamed on YouTube. The parish is served by members of the Dominican Order — the Order of Preachers.
The Dominican Shrine of St. Jude Thaddeus is a ministry of the Dominican Friars of the Province of St. Albert the Great, which is dedicated to intercessory prayer with St. Jude Thaddeus and education on Catholic devotions in the U.S. The shrine is located within St. Pius V Parish, at 1901 S. Ashland Ave., on Chicago’s near southwest side.
The shrine was opened in 1929 and is home to the arm of St. Jude, reported to be the largest relic of an apostle outside of Rome, as well as three smaller relics of the saint. Each day, at least 200 people visit the shrine, asking St. Jude to help them with their needs or thanking St. Jude for the help they have received. Each week, they receive nearly 2,000 prayer requests from people seeking help in the troubled areas of their lives. Many people who send their prayer requests later write to express their thanks for an answer to their prayers.
St. Jude is the patron saint of hope and impossible causes and one of Jesus’ original 12 Apostles. He preached the Gospel with great passion, often in the most difficult circumstances. Through the power of the Holy Spirit, he made profound differences in people’s lives as he offered them the Word of God. The Gospel tells us that St. Jude was a brother of St. James the Less, also one of the Apostles. They are described in the Gospel of Matthew as the “brethren” of Jesus, probably cousins.
St. Jude is traditionally depicted carrying the image of Jesus in his hand. This recalls one of his miracles during his work spreading the Word of God. King Abagar of Edessa asked Jesus to cure him of leprosy and sent an artist to bring him a drawing of Jesus. Impressed with Abagar’s great faith, Jesus pressed His face on a cloth, leaving the image of His face on it. He gave the cloth to St. Jude, who took the image to Abagar and cured him.
After the death and resurrection of Jesus, St. Jude traveled throughout Mesopotamia, Libya, and Persia with St. Simon preaching and building up the foundations of the early Church. St. Jude died a martyr’s death for his unwavering faith. His body was later brought to Rome and placed in a crypt under St. Peter’s Basilica.
How did devotion to St. Jude begin?
After his death, many turned to St. Jude for his intercession in prayer. Jesus inspired the devotion to St. Jude for St. Bridget of Sweden when He directed her in a vision to turn to St. Jude with great faith and confidence. In a vision, Christ told St. Bridget, “In accordance with his surname, Thaddeus, the amiable or loving, he will show himself most willing to give help.” During the Middle Ages, St. Jude was widely venerated, but perhaps because of the confusion between his name and that of Judas Iscariot, he slipped into temporary obscurity.
In the early 20th century, St. Jude Thaddeus was relatively unknown to the general Catholic population in the United States. In 1929, the first devotional services to St. Jude were held by Claretian Fr. James Tort at Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in southeast Chicago; before the year ended, the country’s only National Shrine of St. Jude would be firmly established. Word of the devotions to St. Jude gradually spread from that tiny corner of Chicago to other parts of the country. During the Great Depression and World War II, thousands of men, women, and children attended novenas at the Shrine; devotion to the “patron saint of hopeless causes” spread throughout the country.
For more information on the Dominican Shrine of St. Jude Thaddeus in Chicago, IL, contact them at 312-226-0020 or visit their website at the-shrine.org/contact-us A prayer line is available 24/7 by calling 385-330-9005.
To contact Blessed Sacrament Parish, call the parish at 608-238-3471 or email Erin Daly, parish administrative assistant, at [email protected]