Category Archives: St. Jude Thaddeus

St. Jude Thaddeus: the Forgotten

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OK, so in my previous post I had written a prayer based on a traditional one that claimed St. Jude was confused with the traitor Judas due to the similarity in names. I didn’t have the prayer handy but was certain that’s how it read. I was wrong. It read that he was forgotten by many. Oh, well. I’m keeping it because I do think people got them confused. I wrote a new one based on this corrected context:

I think that this is further evidence that St. Jude is a leading advocate and intercessor for us. In the throes of our addiction, we were often shunned by family and friends and others. Perhaps rightfully so, given our behavior. Nevertheless, this contributed to our dehumanization. Numbering among the lost, the lonely, being hopeless and desparing of ever having a normal and complete life, we entered the realm of the forgotten. Matt Talbot experienced this; he had no money to buy beer at his favorite Dublin pub and his friends turned him away. This caused him to turn his life around, to ‘take the pledge.’ 

The emotions experienced when you feel this way, that you are a non-person, may be the bottom oft-spoken of. That “jumping off place,” where you know that if you continue to drink you will die, but if you stop drinking, you may onky wish for death. And so a glimmer of hope begins to glow…

You’ve been there. Take for a moment and think back to those dark times when you were caught in the grips of loneliness and despair. 

I wish I had developed a devotion to St. Jude long before this week. There have been countless times where I had felt so alone, llost and forgotten. Granted, we can always turn to Jesus and Mary (and I did,) but to have a specific saint,an apostle no less, who is the advocate of the despairing and alone. (Dear Paulcoholic: May I remind you of your devotion to Our Lady of Sorrows? No one’s feeling of sorrow and hurt was as great as Our Blessed Mother’s as she contemplated her Son’s eventual Passion and death. Not to mention what she went through as she actually experienced it. Dear Conscience: OK, yeah, I know  all that. But what I love about Catholic devotional spirituality is that it is designed for everyone in whatever state they’re in, “where they’re at,” so to speak. Reaching out to the Blessed Mother may be difficult for some. But there’s this other guy, see…. Dear Paulcoholic: Point taken. Carry on.)

By the way, if you like the image I added to this post, it, and others like it are (or soon will be) available at my Shop Sober Catholic storefront over on Sober Catholic Pixels site. There are a few products there already, more will be added tonight through this weekend. I would love it if you’d patronize it. I can use the funds. If you’d like to donate through PayPal, the link is here: PayPal Paul Sofranko. This is the third in an ongoing series of solicitaions to help my wife and I get through some financial stresses. Between a  combination of underemployment, health issues, sales of one book not being very good, and other factors, we are in a tight money crunch. I have been praying to St. Jude very intensely this week for the alleviation of these issues. If PayPal isn’t your thing, you can also mail a check, payable to: Paul Sofranko; and send it to: P.O. Box 358; North Boston, NY 14110.

Another way to help is by purchasing my books and online products. You can purchase for yourself or multiple copies for others that might be interested. My new book, “The Sober Catholic Way” comes as an ebook for Amazon Kindle, or as a paperback from Amazon. If you prefer Barnes and Noble, then here is the link for a paperback; and if you have a B&N Nook, here is the Nook purchase link. 

00000 TSCWBookCover 1 scaled e1727404661851.

It is also now available at numerous other ebook retailers like Apple Books and Smashwords. You might also try this Universal Book Link: click and then select the logo of your fave online bookshop.

Click on this page to discover where you can buy The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts. 

UntitledImage 7.

It’s available through Amazon, B&N and Apple, as well as Smashwords and other retailers. 

The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics is also available; that page tells you all the places you can buy it!

UntitledImage 8.

Are you creative-minded? Know people who are? Then Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better! (This is the book I referred to above as not selling very well.)

 

“Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics” is a call to arms, or rather, a call to pens, paintbrushes, and video cameras, for creative Catholics to take up St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe’s call to infiltrate pop culture and help alleviate the ills that pervade contemporary society. St. Maximilian saw back in the 1920s how the use of cinema, radio, and mass-market books was corrupting society. He thought that those same tools could be used as a countercultural force to overcome this corruption. 

Furthermore, it explains through the example of three critical apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Guadalupe, Lourdes, and Fatima how she herself suggested strategies and alternatives to the dehumanizing and increasingly pagan contemporary culture we have today.

“Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics” concludes by showing how the Catholic Faith can be used to provide a road map out of our current morass and a blueprint to build a more just and fair society constructed according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy and other elements of traditional Catholic Social Teachings.

Get it for your Amazon Kindle through this link!

Prefer the paperback? Get it through this link!

Thank you for reading this far, as well as for whatever assistance you can provide. It is greatly appreciated and I will add you to my prayers. St. Jude may also appreciate your cooperating with him in this…

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

St. Jude Thaddeus: Confused with the Traitor

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This is a follow up post to Monday’s one of St. Jude Thaddeus, Apostle and patron saint of alcoholics and addicts. 

As I mentioned in that post, I became enamored with St. Jude when I read several prayer cards of his. They gave me the idea of recruiting him to be a patron of alcoholics.

They also gave me an idea for a series of posts on him. (I’m trying to make up for lost time. I should have become a devotee of his long ago.)

In many prayers to him, he is referred to as being “confused with the traitor.” This is easy, as the traitor is Judas, and so is one version of our saint’s name. Hence it being changed to “Jude.” Nevertheless, in the first few centuries, when literacy was not common and the canonical books of the Christian Scriptures hadn’t been codified until the late 4th century, it is easy to see how he could have been confused with Judas. 

How does this connect to alcoholics? In one way, I liken ‘confused’ to being ‘misunderstood.’ Also, being falsely accused. You are an early Christian and you’re reading texts that are considered sacred or at least important, or they are being read at Mass, and “Judas” comes up. Naturally, you are disposed to feeling very negative towards the person, even though it is not the traitor, just another with the same name. So, people are often thinking very negatively about this person. (Jude was martyred in the year 65. Many of the accepted New Testament texts had been written by then, so it’s even possible that he may have been aware of the confusion with the traitor.) 

One of the consequences of being an alcoholic is being misunderstood. Our motivations are questioned, as is our sincerity. Our behavior leads others to think we are capable of greater sins than what we’ve actually done. In St. Jude, we have an Apostle who is in our corner; he understands the pain of having our actions and character misunderstood. Think about that when you feel as if people do not know (or appreciate) “the real you.” Apostles are the pillars of the Church: her dogmas and doctrines, her safeguarding of the Gospel message of Christ. All Catholic bishops are lineal descendants of the Twelve Apostles. Having an Apostle understand you is a mighty thing.

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I’d like to take the time to reiterate a plea I made at the end of Monday’s post, that of offering some financial assistance to help us bridge the gap between now and Spring. We are experiencing financial stresses, and one way of helping out is by paypalling me whatever you can spare at: PayPal Paul Sofranko. (It is NOT tax-deductible.) You can also mail a check, payable to: Paul Sofranko; and send it to: P.O. Box 358; North Boston, NY 14110.

Another is through the purchase of my books. All are offered through Amazon. My Amazon Author’s Page lists them all. If you wish to find retailers other than Amazon, please visit their pages: The Sober Catholic Way; The Recovery Rosary, The Staions of the Cross for Alcoholics and Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics.

A third way is to purchase some products I am creating to help promote this blog and apostolate. You can Shop Sober Catholic! That page offers a selection from many other products, such as T-shirts, mugs, rosary cases and zippered book cases, stickers for your laptop, smartphone cases, and much more! You can see the entire product line at The Sober Catholic Pixels Shop! I will begin promoting these soon!

I just added some new products, including some featuring St. Jude and a prayer I wrote for alcoholcs and addicts! 

Thank you for whatever assistance you can provide. It is greatly appreciated and I will add you to my prayers.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)

St. Jude Thaddeus, Apostle and patron saint of alcoholics and addicts

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Today (Oct. 28) is the feast day of St. Jude Thaddeus (it’s also shared with St. Simon the Zealot, but St. Jude is the subject of this post.)

St. Jude was one of the Apostles of Our Lord and is the author of the Epistle of Jude in the New Testament. He is often called the “brother of Our Lord,” but this is an extended meaning of the term “brother,” in reality Jude was the cousin of Jesus as Semitic languages lack the word for “cousin.” He is often depicted with having a flame about his head; this symbolizes his presence at the first Pentecost and also distinguishes him from Judas Iscariot, the traitor of Jesus, who is quite likely covered in flames of a different sort. St. Jude is also often depicted with a plate or shield with Jesus’ image on it; legend has that he carried this with him and it healed people.

He was martyred by beheading circa 65AD.

I’ve never had all that much of a devotion to St. Jude, mainly because there is so much pop Catholic cultural “stuff” about him. Prayer cards and booklets and so on readily available in parishes, items in the classified sections of newspapers in response to favors granted (and that you are guaranteed a favorable response to your St. Jude novena if you promise to publish the novena for nine consecutive days. This is borderline superstitious as prayer doesn’t really work that way.) All this served to be a little “off-putting” for me, and despite having tons of these prayer cards stashed in a wooden box where I keep excess pious items, I never gave him much thought. 

Until yesterday and today. I have been trying to recruit more saints and blesseds to intercede for us alcoholics. For that reason, as well as that I am compiling a prayer book for sober Catholics and I want it to exceed expectations by having numerous saints in there that people do not know about (or who are not typically associated with ex-drunks; St. Dismas is one. ) While I was pondering him yesterday, St. Rita of Cascia also came to mind as she’s important to me (there is a point to this, please bear with me.) She is known as the patronness of impossible cases, just like St. Jude. (Maybe that’s another reason why I never developed much of a devotion to him?) But yesterday I got to thinking about St. Jude, and decided that another saint dedicated to helping hopeless cases could work. He and St. Rita could team up. Based on where I’m at right now (more on that later) I decided to think about cultivating a relationship with him. And I let that slide until today. 

And so I looked through that wooden box where I’ve kept all those “excess pious items” and found a bunch of prayer cards. I read them over and they hit me. Yes, I need his help. AND I can begin blogging about him now and then and perhaps those of you who do not have a devotion to him can see the value in it. 

And so I just recruited St. Jude to be an advocate and patron saint of alcoholics and addicts. The thought occurred to me that what with all the devotions surrounding him regarding being the patron saint of hopeless and desperate cases, he’d be a perfect intercessor for us. Now we alcoholics and addicts have TWO Apostles in our corner, the other being St. Matthias.

I mentioned a few paragraphs above about “where I’m at.” Due to a variety of circumstances, things are a bit stressed financially at the moment, although they should improve come Springtime when Social Security begins for me and my wife and I begin the process of relocating to a more affordable residence. If you’d like to help out by assisting in bridging the gap between now and then, you can do that in two ways:

One, by paypalling me whatever you can spare at: PayPal Paul Sofranko. Thank you! (It is NOT tax-deductible. It wouldn’t be an act of charity, then.) You can also mail a check, payable to: Paul Sofranko; and send it to: P.O. Box 358; North Boston, NY 14110.

Two: by purchasing my books and online products. You can purchase for yourself or multiple copies for others that might be interested. My new book, “The Sober Catholic Way” comes as an ebook for Amazon Kindle, or as a paperback from Amazon. If you prefer Barnes and Noble, then here is the link for a paperback; and if you have a B&N Nook, here is the Nook purchase link. 

00000 TSCWBookCover 1 scaled e1727404661851.

It is also now available at numerous other ebook retailers like Apple Books and Smashwords. You might also try this Universal Book Link: click and then select the logo of your fave online bookshop.

Click on this page to discover where you can buy The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts. 

UntitledImage 7.

It’s available through Amazon, B&N and Apple, as well as Smashwords and other retailers. 

The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics is also available; that page tells you all the places you can buy it!

UntitledImage 8.

Are you creative-minded? Know people who are? Then Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics is my new book exhorting Catholics to apply their faith to change the culture for the better!

 

“Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics” is a call to arms, or rather, a call to pens, paintbrushes, and video cameras, for creative Catholics to take up St. Maximilian Maria Kolbe’s call to infiltrate pop culture and help alleviate the ills that pervade contemporary society. St. Maximilian saw back in the 1920s how the use of cinema, radio, and mass-market books was corrupting society. He thought that those same tools could be used as a countercultural force to overcome this corruption. 

Furthermore, it explains through the example of three critical apparitions of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Guadalupe, Lourdes, and Fatima how she herself suggested strategies and alternatives to the dehumanizing and increasingly pagan contemporary culture we have today.

“Building a Civilization of Love: A Call to Creative Catholics” concludes by showing how the Catholic Faith can be used to provide a road map out of our current morass and a blueprint to build a more just and fair society constructed according to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy and other elements of traditional Catholic Social Teachings.

Get it for your Amazon Kindle through this link!

Prefer the paperback? Get it through this link!

Are you a happy Sober Catholic? Then Shop Sober Catholic! That page offers a selction from the many other products, such as T-shirts, mugs, rosary cases and zippered book cases, stickers for your laptop, smartphone cases, and much more! You can see the entire product line at The Sober Catholic Pixels Shop!

I just added some new products, including some featureing St. Jude and a prayer I wrote for alcoholcs and addicts! (It may not be available, yet, so please check back later. Actually, I will probably blog about it when it hits the general public.)

Thank you for reading this far, as well as for whatever assistance you can provide. It is greatly appreciated and I will add you to my prayers.

I have a new book! "The Sober Catholic Way" is a handbook on how anyone can live a sober life, drawn from over 17 years of SoberCatholic posts! It's out now on "Amazon," "Apple Books," "B&N" and and others!"!

My two other books are still available! "The Stations of the Cross for Alcoholics" and "The Recovery Rosary: Reflections for Alcoholics and Addicts" (Thank you!!)