St. Jude Shrine generates hope and strong devotion
Known as the patron of hopeless causes, St. Jude Thaddeus has been giving hope to pilgrims visiting San Francisco’s Shrine of St. Jude at St. Dominic Church for more than 70 years.
“As America was in the midst of a terrible Depression and war clouds were gathering all over the world, the efforts of the Dominican friars to offer hope started with a series of holy hours which grew to annual novenas,” said Stedman Matthew, shrine administrator.
Is the shrine a destination for the visitors? “Absolutely,” Matthew said. “Pilgrims come to St. Jude as he is called the patron of hope and saint of last resort. They are the very sick, the desperate, the despairing. All come to seek his intercession.”
More than 60,000 pilgrims visit the shrine annually, Matthew said. Letters of petition received at the shrine number more than 16,000 per year. Donations total in the $1 million range and are used to fund the education of Dominican friars for the priesthood and brotherhood.
Dominican Father Martin de Porres Walsh is director of the shrine. The biggest of wishes are said to have come true in conjunction with the shrine, Father Walsh said. The occurrences are not documented, Father Walsh pointed out, but miracles are said to have taken place.
“About two months ago I was blessing pilgrims,” he said, “and a woman asked me to bless her husband with the relic. He had severe heart problems and was scheduled for surgery within the next few days. I blessed him.” Two weeks later the couple was back and Father Walsh was surprised. “They told me the doctor reexamined her husband before the scheduled surgery and the heart problem was gone and they cancelled the operation.”
While many come looking for miracles, what they’ll mostly find at the shrine is hope, said Matthew. “People sometimes come expecting miracles, but that’s not what we push here,” he said. “We push hope and devotion and deep faith and the idea that you can connect with St. Jude here and he can intercede for us. The community of saints has become very palpable to me here.”
Every petition or request made to the shrine is fulfilled, Matthew said. Requests are for prayers, Masses, the lighting of a candle, and items including St. Jude oil, blessed with a relic of the apostle. “The trust people put in St. Jude as their intercessor is extraordinary,” he noted.
The annual St. Jude Novena is Oct. 20 – 28. While several hundred people will be present for the rites, more than 10,000 people will pray the devotion from their homes.
Pamphlets with prayers for all of the novena’s nine days have been sent to the 12,000 people on the shrine mailing list. The prayer sheets will also be distributed at the novena site.
“The novena is an intimate encounter with Christ in a special way through the intercession of St. Jude,” Matthew said.
“The novena is for anyone who believes the saints are our sisters and brothers and anyone who has needs,” Father Walsh said.
The annual St. Jude Novena will be prayed Oct. 20 – 28 at St. Dominic Church, 2390 Bush St. at Steiner in San Francisco. Dominican Father Jerome Cudden is novena preacher. Masses are celebrated Monday through Friday at 8 a.m. and 5:30 p.m.; Saturday at 8 a.m. and Sunday at 9:30 and 11:30 a.m. A Mass in Spanish will be celebrated on the last day of the novena, Oct. 28, at 1:30 p.m. A pilgrimage procession takes place from St. Paul of the Shipwreck Church in San Francisco to St. Dominic’s on Oct. 25 beginning at 9 a.m. Send petitions to Shrine of St. Jude Thaddeus, Father Martin Walsh, OP, P.O. Box 15368, San Francisco 94115-0368. Visit www.stjude-shrine.org.
(By Tom Burke)
