Poor guy...guilty by association...his name sounds too much like Judas Ischariot, who betrayed Our Lord and despaired because of his great sin and lack of trust in God's mercy.
Anyhow, St. Jude, known as Thaddaeus, was a brother of St. James the Less, and a relative of Our Saviour (a distant cousin). St. Jude was one of the 12 Apostles of Jesus (one of the stars that surrounds Mary's Miraculous Medal, is the way I like to visualize it).
Ancient writers tell us that he preached the Gospel in Judea, Samaria, Idumaea, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Lybia. According to Eusebius, he returned to Jerusalem in the year 62, and assisted at the election of his brother, St. Simeon, as Bishop of Jerusalem.
Jude was the one who asked Jesus at the Last Supper why He would not manifest Himself to the whole world after His resurrection. Little else is known of his life. Legend claims that he visited Beirut and Edessa; possibly martyred with St. Simon in Persia.
Jude is invoked in desperate situations because his New Testament letter stresses that the faithful should persevere in the environment of harsh, difficult circumstances, just as their forefathers had done before them. Therefore, he is the patron saint of desperate cases and his feast day is October 28 (I misssed it, darn it).
He is an author of an epistle (letter) to the Churches of the East, particularly the Jewish converts, directed against the heresies of the Simonians, Nicolaites, and Gnostics. This Apostle is said to have suffered martyrdom in Armenia, which was then subject to Persia. The final conversion of the Armenian nation to Christianity did not take place until the third century of our era.
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