'Apostle of the Impossible'

St. Jude Thaddeus as friend, intercessor and model for Christians

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Facing an "impossible" need? Then befriend St. Jude Thaddeus – the 'Apostle of the Impossible' – and enlist his aid.

To mark the Oct. 28 feast of St. Jude, Souls and Liberty is featuring a series of reflections on this great man of God.

Noted exorcist Fr. Carlos Martins maintains a special devotion to St. Jude, and from 2023-2024, he toured the United States with a relic of the saint. Along the way, Fr. Martins provided the faithful with fascinating insights into the life and legacy – as well as the efficacy of intercession – of St. Jude Thaddeus. Key excerpts are included below.

Describing St. Jude as "an apostle ... a man chosen by Christ to be one of His closest collaborators; a man whom Christ taught and formed," Fr. Martins noted that "Jude is further special, in that he is the first cousin of Jesus Christ."

"The Church Fathers inform us Jude is the son of Mary of Clopas," the priest explained. "If her name is familiar to you, it is so because she was one of the three Marys who stood at the foot of the Lord's cross at the crucifixion – there was, of course, the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mary Magdalene, and Mary of Clopas. The Fathers inform us that the Blessed Virgin Mary and Mary of Clopas are blood sisters. making her son, St. Jude, and her other son – also an Apostle – St. James the Less, first cousins of Jesus Christ."

"Jude ... at least in terms of the text of the Gospel ... is easily, among the 12 ... the biggest nobody," Fr. Martins noted, reflecting on the irony. "In the entire Gospel, St. Jude utters one single sentence, and that's a question he poses to the Lord on the night of the Last Supper. Here's his question: 'How come?''"

"That's it – exit stage right," Fr. Martins quipped.

"Our Lord has just told His Apostles that He is not going to reveal Himself to the world in the same way that He has to His Apostles, and that perplexes Jude, because he interprets that to mean that the world is somehow going to miss out – that the world is not going to get as much as what the Apostles had received," he continued. "Little does he know what Christ has planned up His sleeve is dying for the world's sin and paying the price for its sin – the entire price – and then three days later rising from the dead and opening the gates of Heaven. Jude at that point cannot fathom that – nobody can."

"Jude does write an epistle in the New Testament," Fr. Martins observed, "but at 25 verses in length – one page – it is the shortest of the New Testament epistles."

"Whereas Jude had a very low profile, his brother, James the Less, had an immense profile, because he was the bishop of Jerusalem. Now there's a high office for you – first bishop of the first diocese of the world.

Here's the irony: St. Jude is the lesser-known brother of St. James the Less. St. Jude's low New Testament profile stands in contrast to the St. Jude that we know today. ... He is easily one of the most popular saints in the world. There are more shrines to St. Jude the Apostle than to any other saint, save his holy aunt, the Blessed Virgin Mary."

"So there's a story, here. How do we go from a guy being the nobody among the 12, to being the heavenly superstar among male saints?

CONVERTING AN ENTIRE NATION

"We know the first place that Jude ministered was at the city of Edessa within the kingdom of Armenia, and how that came about is fascinating," Fr. Martins explained.

"The king of Armenia, Abgar V, was dying of a terrible illness and he had heard about this Jesus of Nazareth, who went about healing people from village to village and town to town within Israel and even beyond," he continued.

"And evidently He was the real thing, because news of His healing prowess had reached Abgar all the way in Armenia," the priest noted, adding, "Armenia is nowhere near Israel; it is across the Asian Peninsula."

"Abgar wrote the Lord a letter and his letter went as follows: 'I hear you are a healer; please, if you are able, come to me and set me free from this terrible illness that is taking my life.'

And Our Lord actually wrote him a response. Now, this is a big deal because this is the only time that we have a record of Jesus Christ leaving behind a piece of writing. ... In his reply to Abgar, the Lord states, 'I must fulfill the work of the one who sent me, but after I have returned to Him, I will send someone to do what you ask of Me in my My Name.'

Jude is the one whom He sent. And as a pledge that the Lord would fulfill what He promises Abgar in His letter, the Lord took a cloth, pressed His Face into the cloth, and the image of His Holy Face miraculously remained behind on it."

"Now, this is not the Veil of Veronica; this is not the Shroud of Turin," Fr. Martins noted. "Those are different images produced at the time of the Lord's Passion – they were produced later."

"The Image of Edessa, as this image has come to be called, was the first of the miraculous images produced by the Lord of His Holy Face and it was reverenced immensely in the ancient world," he explained. "Even today, the Eastern churches – the Eastern Catholic, Eastern Byzantine churches, and the Eastern Orthodox Churches – have a special liturgy, a Mass, they celebrate specifically in honor of this image, which they call the Holy Mandylion; the holy image not made by hands."

"The letters exchanged between the Lord and Abgar, along with the Image of Edessa, were kept at the archives of Edessa for centuries," Fr. Martins continued. "They were witnessed to by a great many of the Church Fathers, including the famous St. Eusebius of Caesarea, the greatest of the ancient Christian historians."

"Most of our knowledge of the ancient Christian Church, the Primitive Church, we obtain from Eusebius," the priest noted as an aside, "and no one in the ancient world doubted the authenticity of the letters or of the image."

"Unfortunately, none of the three exist any longer," Fr. Martins lamented. "They were destroyed at France by the revolutionaries during the French Revolution. We possess the text of the letters because they were copied over many times, but we no longer possess the actual letters, nor the Image of Edessa."

"Regardless," the exorcist continued, "the records from the time state that when Jude entered into the city of Edessa within Armenia and was led to the chamber where Abgar the king was lying on his back dying, light was emanating from Jude's flesh and he walked up to Abgar and placed his right arm on him."

"Abgar was healed instantly," Fr. Martins recounted, "and immediately converted to the Christian faith – as as you would do when a man whose flesh is glowing with light places his arm upon you and removes from you your lethal illness. The records state that Jude remained behind in Armenia for a period of time and healed a great many of the sick,"

"Armenia has the glory and honor of being the first nation in the world to convert to Christianity in total for this reason," he noted. "When you visit Jerusalem today, Jerusalem is divided into four quarters: there is the Jewish quarter, the Muslim quarter, the generic Christian quarter, and the Armenian Christian quarter – all because of the ministry of this man."

"Following his ministry in Armenia, the records pertaining to St. Jude's activity get a little bit fuzzier," Fr. Martins observed. "We know that he ministered in ancient Mesopotamia – modern-day Iraq. We know he ministered at ancient Persia – modern-day Iran. And we know that he ministered within the regions of Tyre and Sidon in modern-day Lebanon. The records, however, are divided as to whether he was martyred at ancient Persia ... or in Beirut, within what is today Lebanon; the dominant textual evidence seems to hint at Beirut."

"Regardless, all records are unanimous in that he was martyred with his missionary partner, St. Simon the Apostle; Jude was clubbed to death and then beheaded with an axe ... It is for this reason when you see an image of St. Jude ... he is typically depicted with a club," the priest explained.

"Following the death of St. Jude, an irony occurred. He entered into the fullness of his dignity and identity. Now, in one sense that's no surprise, because it is only when we leave the confines of this Earth and enter into our Heavenly Homeland that we come to be who we were meant to be.

But even more than that, God had something absolutely remarkable planned for St. Jude – something that would only come to fruition at his death. An activity on Earth that he would perform only in death, such that the greatest events of Christian history have Jude's fingerprints all over them – to an extent that a case could be made that St. Jude the Apostle is the greatest evangelist in Christian history."

Father Martins recounted two remarkable events of which St. Jude was a part, in the centuries following his martyrdom.

VANQUISHING VALERIAN

"In the year 250, Valerian became emperor of Rome. Valerian was a butcher who hated Christians – he hated them more than even the emperors Nero and Vespasian, under whom tens of thousands of Christians lost their lives," Fr. Martins explained. "Valerian, as his first act of office, issued a series of eight decrees that he thought would eliminate the Christian faith once and for all."

"Valerian ... then promptly went off to make war against ... the King of Persia," he continued. "Among the places on this planet where that battle could have occurred, ironically, it occurred at the city of Edessa, within the kingdom of Armenia – the city and nation made Christian and holy by [St. Jude]."

At Edessa, Fr. Martins observed, "the unimaginable occurred."

"Ancient Rome had existed for 1200 years. Militarily, it had never been defeated – the Roman military machine was evidently unconquerable."

But "on that day, at the Battle of Edessa, not only was the Roman army defeated, the entire Roman army was captured – including the emperor, Valerian."

"Valerian was taken to Persia to be the [king's] personal slave, the records from the time state. ... Among the other humiliations he had to endure, he had to get down on his hands and knees and serve as a stool for the [king] to step on his back while mounting his horse. He died as [the king's] slave seven years later, never setting eyes on his homeland again."

"Upon the capture of his father, Valerian's son immediately became emperor, and he recognized, 'It is because of what my father did against the Christians that Rome has suffered this catastrophic embarrassment.' In other words, it was his belief that the Christian God was exacting revenge for what his father had decreed against the Christians.

So his first act of office was to rescind the anti-Christian decrees promulgated by his father. ... That began what historians today call the "Little Peace of the Church," a 40-year period – the longest in the ancient times – where Christians could live peacefully and persecution-free."

ENTER CONSTANTINE

"Upon the close of those 40 years, the persecutions fired up again in earnest," Fr. Martins continued. "But then, some 23 years later, a young general named Constantine was getting ready to face a rival general at the Battle of Milvian Bridge in Rome. The winner of this battle would go on to become emperor of Rome."

"That battle that was fought that day by these two generals is easily the most decisive battle in human history, because if Constantine had not won that battle, friends, you and I would not be Christians. Constantine was outnumbered and his men were out-skilled and they were widely-expected to lose that day. But as Constantine was marching towards that bridge, he saw written in the sky these words: 'In this sign you will conquer.' And then there was an image of a Chi Rho, a 'P' with an 'X' through the step – an ancient Christian symbol representing the first two letters of the Greek word for 'Christ'."

"Constantine ordered each of his men to paint a Chi Rho on his shield, and they won against all odds ... and so Pagan Constantine immediately converted to the Christian faith faith, and he made it a capital crime punishable by execution if you were to persecute a Christian. ... And so, protected by the strength and now the faith of the Roman Empire, Christianity was free to disseminate itself across the entire civilized world.

And that is the reason why, friends, you and I today are Christians; all because of the Battle at Milvian Bridge – which occurred on October 28th, feast day of St. Jude the Apostle. As the churches of Rome were singing their closing hymns on the solemnity of St. Jude, Constantine was being declared the victor."

FORGOTTEN, AND FOUND AGAIN

In the decades after the fall of the Western Roman Empire, devotion to St. Jude was extinguished in a remarkable, and absurd, irony.

"Following the Christianization of Europe," Fr. Martins notes, "all devotion to St. Jude the Apostle, worldwide, ceased for 1,200 years. From the year 500 until the year 1700, no one prayed to St. Jude the Apostle. Why? A cancerous thinking emerged ... diabolical in origin ... a major and significant error that enveloped the whole of Christendom."

Essentially, Fr. Martins, explained, thinking began to emerge among Christians that if they prayed to St. Jude, their prayers might inadvertently go to Judas Iscariot, and therefore, go unheard by God. And so, all devotion to St. Jude Thaddeus died out.

"It was diabolical," the exorcist declared. "There there was a motive by the enemy as to why he would inflict this specifically against Jude. Jude had, if you recall, had usurped the 1,200-year record of Rome's military at the Battle of Edessa; so for 1,200 years, no one prayed to St. Jude."

"Until something remarkable happened, around the year 1700," he continued. "What occurred had to be divine, because it occurred around the world, simultaneously, all at once."

"Multitudes, myriads of folks, being in a desperate and hopeless situation where they needed a miracle of this sort or another, and having tried, having pleaded to every every other Heavenly intercessor; having consulted every other saint and offered numerous supplications and prayers and having come up short, their prayers were not answered. They thought, 'I've tried everyone else – what have I got to lose?' And they sent their prayers his way and you know what happened? BAM! Every single petition was knocked out of the ballpark."

"It was from that time, from 1700, that St. Jude the Apostle became known as the patron saint of hopeless cases and desperate situations, because – guess what? – only hopeless cases and desperate situations were given him. And he has rightly, from that time, earned the nickname of the 'Apostle of the Impossible' and enjoys a popularity that is absolutely unparalleled among male saints, and among all the other saints, surpassed only by that of the Mother of God."

A LESSON FOR US ALL

Father Martins noted that the life and legacy of St. Jude offers an important lesson for all Christians today. In the wake of the crucifixion, he said, Jude "felt like he was a total and complete loser."

"Earlier that day, when his Lord and relative needed him most – as He hung on

the cross dying – Jude was nowhere to be found," the priest recounted. "His mother had the guts to stand at the foot of the cross, but he didn't."

"And so, when the Lord rose from the dead and made His first resurrection appearance to His Apostles," Fr. Martins continued, "the first thing that the Lord had to do was forgive them for their unfaithfulness ... and so the first words out of the mouth of the resurrected Lord in John:20, when He appears to His Apostles for the first time, are words of absolution and reconciliation: 'Peace be with you'."

"Jude had to do something in that moment which was absolutely heroic: He had to accept that forgiveness. And that, friends, is no small thing, because when we've messed up big-time, when we've screwed things up royally, the easiest thing to do is to hate ourselves and despise ourselves and to hold ourselves in contempt. ...

We can delude ourselves by thinking that such a treatment of the self – such a mistreatment – is good and just and pleases God, because 'I messed up and so I don't deserve happiness; I deserve to suffer'.

How could anything that contradicts God's Word please God, who commands us – orders us, over and over in his Word – to forgive our enemies? Well, that holds true, friends, even if your enemy is your own very self."

"The hardest thing – but the most profitable – that many of us will ever do is look at that person who is staring at us in the mirror and say to that person, 'I forgive

you. I release you from what I hold against you, and I ask God to give you a blessing

instead,'" Fr. Martins declared.

"That is exactly what [St. Jude] did to himself, and I will tell you this: In that moment, as the resurrected Jesus is standing in front of him what was going through his mind is, 'Get out of here; just leave you're – too much of a sinner, too much of a weakling, too much of a nobody, too much of a loser to be of any use to Jesus Christ. Get out of here, then He can replace you with somebody competent; somebody way better than you. You are a mistake. You are a loser.'"

"But the resurrected Lord was in front of him, telling him, 'I want you once again on My team.' And so he had to make a decision: Does he listen to the voices inside him, or does he listen to the man who is also God in front of him, who has just come back from the dead? And thank God for him, and thank God for you and for me, that he made the decision that he did: He was merciful to himself. He chose to accept God's love and apply it to himself. He evangelized himself – self first, and then he was able to go forth, absolutely unstoppable."

"Look at him now. His life, friends, needs to be a reminder and a sign for you and for me that God has great plans for us – every one of us. God's plan for you is to make you into a great saint, and if you think of yourself as a nobody or a loser, you're God's favorite kind of person to do something big with – just ask [St. Jude]."

"Now, you might be thinking, 'Well, Father, come on – I'll never be a saint.' Don't ever, ever allow that thought in your head, because that is the spirit of Judas Iscariot," Fr. Martins admonished. "That is not from the Holy Spirit. Dispel that thought as soon as it comes in."

"It is outside your power to make yourself a saint, it is outside mine; that's the work of God," the priest continued. "What is within your power and mine is to say 'Yes' to God, just like this man said, 'Yes'. God does the rest. We need to say our 'Yes' often ... we need to say it daily, because we're really good at saying 'No' to Him ... we need to give God a fresh daily 'Yes' to cancel out all of our 'No's'."

"The mark of sainthood is not never sinning," Fr. Martins counseled. "The mark of sainthood is saying 'Yes' to Jesus Christ. God can do a whole lot with a 'Yes' – just ask this guy, and you'll know what a 'Yes' looks like: a sinner humbly, with hat in hand, walking to the confessional and handing over your sins through the priest to Jesus Christ."

"It is useful to compare St. Jude's response to Christ's offer with that of Judas Iscariot. Why do we not honor Judas Iscariot as a saint, but we do honor St. Jude and the other 10 Apostles?" the priest asked.

"Because Judas Iscariot refused to forgive himself," he explained. "He refused to accept Christ's love and apply it to himself and there is no glory in that, friend. There is never any glory in staring at God in the face and saying 'No' to what he wants."

"Judas Iscariot could have been the greatest of the twelve Apostles," Fr. Martins reflected. "The greatest, because if Jesus Christ had not died, He couldn't have risen from the dead. If He had not risen from the dead, the Gates of Heaven would still be closed, and upon our leaving this Earth ... we would suffer the same fate that every other soul did until the moment Christ rose from the dead. Upon our deaths, you and I would go to hell – that was the fate of every single soul, both the righteous and the wicked; all went to the same place."

Judas Iscariot's betrayal of Christ was the trigger for the opening of Heaven, Fr. Martins continued, lamenting that "it is absolutely tragic that Judas Iscariot couldn't have benefited more than he did from his action."

"Saint Jude," however, "forgave himself. He accepted Christ's love and applied it to himself, and that for him, friends, made all the difference," Fr. Martins noted. "It was the engine that allowed God's plan for him to work in his life, and just look at how it has worked!"

A GOOD FRIEND TO HAVE

Wherever he went during his St. Jude relic tour, Fr. Martins urged the faithful to become friends with St. Jude, and to accept whatever gift the Apostle of the Impossible has waiting for them, upon commencement of this friendship.

"You need to say to him two things," the priest instructed attendees. "One: 'I accept you as my friend.' 'I accept you as my friend' – say the words when you're in front of [the relic]. You don't have to say them out loud, but say the words, 'I accept you as my friend'."

"Secondly, 'I accept the gift that you have for me today; I accept your gift.' He's got a gift for everyone. I have no idea what yours is going to be – it is unique for each person. But you're just going to have to trust me on this one, he's got a gift for you. But he cannot give it to you unless you accept it," Fr. Martins stressed. "'I accept your friendship and your gift' – give him all of your prayer intentions; everything that is on your heart. I'll tell you right now, what's going to happen ... when you leave here today, your friend is going to leave with you."

"He will never leave you, and so whenever that petition or any other petition comes to mind, you turn to your friend, and you say, 'Jude I need you to do something for ... this person and for that family and for this situation.' And your friend – who dwells so much in the heart of God, and is so beloved by God that God has chosen to make Himself powerless when this man presents Him a petition – your friend will get to work bringing God your petitions."

Father Martins then shared a recent case of St. Jude's miraculous intercession – a case involving a Michigan Catholic couple, Doug and Noreen Edwards.

"I met [Doug] years ago at one of these relic events. He introduced himself to me and he said to me, 'Father, I own a printing shop. If you ever have any printing needs, let me know'," the priest recalled.

"So I contacted him this past summer," Fr. Martins continued. "I said, 'Doug, the the Vatican has assigned to me the charge of directing the pilgrimage of the major relics of St. Jude across America. I need to produce great big pull-up banners – do you do that type of printing?' He said, 'Sure, Father.' I said, 'OK, I'll send you the digital files; you can price out what it would cost. Send me an invoice and I'll fire off a check to you.' He said to me, 'Father, I'm not going to charge you.' I said, 'Doug, I don't think you know how many and how large of banners I need.' ... I said to him, 'The last time I produced this many banners, the cost exceeded $22,000.' And he said to me, 'Father, I'm not going to charge you. This is going to be my gift to St. Jude, and giving him this gift is going to make me feel like I'm evangelizing alongside him with his relics.'"

"When he had the banners finished, I called him up. I said, 'Doug, I'm coming to your print shop. I'm bringing the [relic of the] Apostle with me, so call whatever friends and family members you like to your shop, and they can have some up-close-and-personal time with the saint," he explained.

"Now, Doug's wife, Noreen, I had never met," Fr. Martins noted. "In 2001, she had – a condition developed in her brain that necessitated surgery, and that surgery left her in a terrible state. It left her in a vegetative state. Ten days after the surgery she was still in a coma. The surgeons went in to do a second surgery to try to bring her out of that coma. ... It thankfully worked, but it left her without the ability to walk and talk. After a prolonged and grueling regimen of physiotherapy she was able to relearn to talk, and she was able to be well enough to take a few steps – not very many – and whenever she would attempt walking, it would knock her out for the rest of the day, because it took everything that she had. So she was a person who was an invalid and required care."

Father Martins visited at Edwards' print shop in September 2023, just before the launch of the St. Jude relic tour. "When I arrived," he recounted, "I said to him, 'Doug, which one of these people here is your wife, Noreen? I want to pray with her with St Jude.' And he said to me, 'Father, Noreen is having a bad day today, and she wasn't able to make it.' I said, 'OK, no problem, we'll go to your house – we'll bring Jude with us.' He said, 'Father, I am so grateful for your kind offer, but Noreen is having a very bad day today and is just not up for a visit.' So I went up to Jude, and I said to to him, 'Jude, Doug is your friend. He's done a lot for you. I need you to do something for his wife, Noreen.'"

"The next day, Doug went home for lunch from his printing shop – and his lunch routine was always the same: He would go home, prepare lunch, feed his wife, feed himself, return to work. On that day, he walked through the doors of his house and the unimaginable had occurred: Lunch was already on the table ... Noreen prepared it, because all her debilitations are gone."

That very day, Fr. Martins received an exuberant phone call from his devoted Catholic friend in Michigan:

"Doug Edwards was screaming at me over and over, 'My wife is darting about the house like a young girl!' The Apostle of the Impossible knocked another one out of the ballpark."

"Friends," Fr. Martins implored his audience, "if you take nothing else with you from this experience ... if you take nothing else home with you, make sure you take home [St. Jude] as your friend. You will never, ever regret it."

Writer, editor and producer Stephen Wynne has spent the past seven years covering, from a Catholic perspective, the latest developments in the Church, the nation and the world. Prior to his work in journalism, he spent eight years co-authoring “Repairing the Breach,” a book examining the war of worldviews between Christianity and Darwinism. A Show-Me State native, he holds a BA in Creative Writing from Pepperdine University and an Executive MBA from the Bloch School of Business at the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

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