There is a saint whose feast day falls just before Day of the Dead causing his special day to receive less attention than the most popular man in town deserves.
There were two apostles named Jude. One was Judas Iscariot, the apostle who betrayed Jesus prior to his crucifixion. The other is Jesus’ cousin, Judas Thaddeus, the son of one of Mary’s cousins.
The legend to St. Jude is he took the medal seen on his chest featuring Jesus’ profile to what is now called Turkey. There he placed the medal on sick King Abgar and he got well making Jude the patron of lost causes.
He is by far the most popular man in San Miguel, sporting more candles and flowers in every church than any other image. In addition he is featured in necklaces and tattoos on bodies all around town. All this adoration is a reflection of the fact that there are more lost causes in life than anything else.
He is also part of daily language. Say you lost your passport and you come to me working at the consulate. I say “I need a form filled in by you by this afternoon. The woman with the form will be back in the office in two weeks.” If you try to argue logistics with me I’ll interrupt you to say “That sounds like a conversation you need to be having with St. Jude.”
St. Jude is so popular he gets the 28th of every month, though his actual day is October 28th. Never try to go into Mexico City on the 28th of the month as the downtown streets will be closed for processions to St. Jude and traffic will come to a standstill.
Back in the 1940’s there was an entertainer in the US named Danny Thomas. When Danny didn’t have much a career going for him he prayed to St. Jude as it was a lost cause. When Danny became rich and famous with his own hit TV show, Make Room for Daddy, he started building those hospitals for terminally ill children across the US named St. Jude’s because the children are lost causes.
Danny’s daughter, Marlo Thomas, of That Girl TV fame continues his fund raising efforts for St. Jude’s Children hospitals.
You can visit St. Jude’s chapel on the road to the Guadalupe cemetery by the bridge because what is the ultimate lost cause in life?
Death.
Joseph Toone is the Historical Society’s short-story award winning author of the SMA Secrets book series. All books in the series are Amazon bestsellers in Mexican Travel and Holidays. Toone is SMA’s expert and TripAdvisor’s top ranked historical tour guide telling the stories behind what we do in today’s SMA. Visit HistoryAndCultureWalkin
