Who was St Jude?
Apostle and Martyr, First Century Feast Day, with Saint Simon the Zealot as well as Jude, the Brother of the Lord: 28 October Also known as Thaddeus, St Jude is one of the twelve apostles. Jude is generally thought to be the brother of another apostle, St James the Less, and the author of the Epistle of Jude in the New Testament. Tradition has it that Jude preached the gospel with St Simon in Syria and Mesopotamia. He finally went to Persia where it is believed he was martyred with arrows or javelins, or on a cross. There were communities who had Jude as their patron in the Middle Ages, but his popularity (and clear record of his history) suffered. The reason is simple enough: his name was too often confused with Judas Iscariot, Christ’s betrayer. Because of this confusion, only the most desperate would pray that Jude intercede for them. Hence, by the nineteenth century, he had become popularly known as the Patron of Lost Causes or Desperate Situations. The simple truth is that, becaus
