St jude devotion - church approved?

[ckliff]

Who knows about the prayer to St Jude. The one where you find these slips of paper in church, or ads in newspapers, saying to publish so many times, etc… Sounds hokey to me. Comments?

 

[tuopaolo]

“publish” means to make known, to proclaim your gratitude to St Jude and to God. It doesn’t mean necessarily to publish something in a newspaper or book or magazine.

 

[chicago]

Usually ther prayers, themselves, are good and it would profit one to pray them devoutly, even in the making of a novena. However, the addition of things like “publish” or “distribute 9 copies for 9 days” or “never fails” reeks of superstition. These elements are usually frowned upon and priests will typically discourage one from placing their trust in those promises. They will also just toss out anything of the like which they find in a Church.

 

[serendipity]

There is a shrine to Saint Jude in Illinoise, and they publishe some prayers on their web site. There is also a collection avialble in a booklet fromTan publishers. Quite a few prayers to St. Jude exists.

The church has never said anything aganst praying to a saint, nor against evangelizing the intercession that praying to siants yields. But I think the type of devotions that have “chain letter” aspects to them, such as "distribute x amount of copies of these prayers, (as opposed to the general “make known that God works wonders throught he intercession of St. Jude,”) do not sound very sound.