Be Friends with Christ through His Friends: The Case of St Jude Thaddeus (Patron Saint of Hope.

Today October 28, we celebrate the feast of Sts Simon and Jude Thaddeus  both apostles of Jesus Christ. The popularity of St Jude, patron of desperate and hopeless cases has eclipsed the other Apostle, Simon the Zealot. It is a twin celebration because tradition holds that both were missionaries to Persia where they were killed, hence martyred for preaching the Gospel. 

One of the many prayers to St Jude describes him as an Apostle, cousin and friend of Jesus Christ. One cannot but wonder why the additional detail of being a friend when he is related by blood to Christ and is even an Apostle. It is no small detail. And it is on this seemingly little detail of being a friend with Christ that I would like to celebrate this feast. 

We live in a world that is no stranger to what has become known as the hook up culture. Hook ups have become a pillar of relationships. Relationships beget other relationships. It could be interesting reviewing your friendship list and asking how you became friends. Even more seriously for those who get married. Some get hitched or hooked up by others. The middle person becomes the insurance policy as it were. Match-makers they are called. And some have even monetized this. It has become a business. This phenomenon is epitomized in what has become a cliche namely: the friend of my friend is my friend. 

It is within this context that I seek to celebrate the feast of St Simon and Jude. They were not just Apostles but became his friends. In John 15:12 - 15 we find an important teaching on friendship. Christ teaches that, “No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” In v.14: You are my friends if you do what I command you. Two things stand out about the meaning of friendship namely laying down one's life and doing the command of Christ. He himself would go on to set the example by dying on the Cross. He laid down his life for his friends. To be his friend then one must lay down one’s life for Christ. The saints we celebrate today followed the command and went out to spread the Gospel and ended up dying for His sake. It is not just that they were Apostles but above all became his friends by going on mission and dying on mission because of Christ. I no longer call you slaves because a slave does not know what his master is doing, I have called you friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. Christ called his apostles, friends. We too can become friends with Christ in and through his friends. The friend of my friend is my friend. 

Our world seems to be going through a crisis of friendship. But just who is a friend? Acquaintances, classmates, neighbors, colleagues at work, club members are all called friends. Some we call Bestie, Best Friends Forever(BFF), boyfriend, girlfriend and now in the very transactional world we have friends with benefits. And we are all familiar with the saying, “A friend in need is a friend in deed.” The question remains who are our friends, our true friends? 

Dr Arthur Brooks in his article, “The Best Friends Can Do Nothing For You” sums up the ancient Greek Aristotle's conception of friendship thus: At the bottom rung - where emotional bonds are weakest and the happiness benefits are lowest- are friendships based on utility to each other in work or in social life…higher up are friendships based on pleasure - something you like or admire about the other person - such as their intelligence or sense of humor. At the highest level are friendships of virtue which Aristotle called “perfect friendship.” These friendships are pursued for their own sake and not instrumental to anything else. 

Brooks distinguishes between deal friends and real friends concluding that if one’s social life is leaving one unfulfilled, it might be because one has too many deal friends or those he calls expedient friends which in Aristotle's schema would be utility and pleasure friends and too few real friends. 

The same could be said of spiritual friends. We often treat the saints, our spiritual friends as utility and pleasure friends. There is a temptation to treat the saints as some “magicians” or miracle working agents. We turn to them when we are in need and after that we move on till the next need arises. This is merely transactional. Saints should be “virtue” friends for us to borrow the Aristotelian description. When we befriend saints, it should not just be to seek their intercession for our temporal needs but to help us grow in our relationship, our friendship with their friend, Jesus Christ. Saints are friends of and friends with Jesus Christ. When we become friends with them we become friends with their friend. 

I have been “deal friends” with St Jude for many years. As one whose middle name is “Ngeh” which means trouble, have been a man of sorrows acquainted with grief, it is not surprising then that this has been a saint of choice. I have been a member of the St. Jude Apostolate and pray religiously, the novena to St Jude. Two years ago, I had the distinct privilege of touching and praying on the relic of St Jude Thaddeus that was moving through the United States of America. Yet in all these, it has always been as a deal friend! Today, as we celebrate the feast of Sts Simon and Jude, I want to be friends with St Jude who is friends with Jesus Christ. I will learn from him and through him what it means to be a friend of Jesus Christ. St Jude exudes hope. As a pilgrim of hope, I am encouraged by Saint Jude, the patron saint of hope.