Jude: A Pilgrimage to the Saint of Last Resort [Hardcover]

Liz Trotta (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 19, 1998

"Anything but high profile by nature, Jude's persona, his essence, occupies the quiet end of a saintly spectrum that includes Paul, the dynamic and even over bearing preacher; Peter, the swashbuckling sailor who lost his nerve at the crucial moment; and St. Teresa of Avila, the mystical yet outspoken intellectual. Jude is the workmanlike spiritual mechanic, the one who does his job and moves on. Approaching him takes no energy and is as secret as shouting in a cave for help."

The patron of desperate cases, Saint Jude is known as much for his miraculous powers of healing and rescue as for the obscurity of his history. A most beloved and enigmatic apostle, Jude remains -- even more now than in his own time -- the ecumenical figure of hope.

In this riveting investigation of faith and legend, award-winning journalist Liz Trotta follows the footsteps of the New Testament's most elusive saint through Italy, Turkey, the lands of Old Armenia, and the United States in search of the shadowy origins, history, and sacred sites of Jude Thaddeus. A modern-day pilgrimage, Jude is filled with rich historical lore, insightful reportage, poignant anecdotes, and personal reflections.

As though guided by Jude himself, Trotta encounters an extraordinary number of meaningful coincidences -- synchronicities which are the very heart of the Jude experience. In every city, at every turn, her sleuthing seems led by an invisible hand, drawing her down narrow alleyways, towards rarely seen relics, to conversations with miracle-seeking people with AIDS. Each experience an added tile, this portrait of Jude emerges as a beautifully rendered mosaic, filled with colorful history, strange artifacts, and stories of the miraculous powers of faith.

"Jude is on call, right down to the softest prayer, the smallest hope. Once lost himself -- on the map and in history -- he is found among those lost who, accepting their solitariness, take refuge in his invisible presence. From East to West, from the first century to the brink of the twenty-first, his message vibrates in the hallow reaches of the unanchored modern world."

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

What in the world has drawn veteran journalist Liz Trotta (the first American woman to report combat news during the Vietnam War) to tease St. Jude from his obscurity? Synchronicity flavors her quest--a comment made in passing to a friend that the shadowy saint had gone "high profile"--leads to the realization that Trotta herself has operated in his territory all along. Jude is the "the patron of last resorts, lost causes, the impossible, the man to summon as the ship goes down."

Her quest opens in a somewhat Martin Scorsesian mood. Trotta is in Baltimore on a bus bound for the shrine of St. Jude with 40 of Vincenzo Pullara's friends and family members. The members of this shady group sport pinkie rings and Italian last names. Pullara himself has been linked to a shooting of one of the defendants in the notorious Pizza Connection drug-ring case. It seems that his wife's fervent prayers to St. Jude have gotten the authorities to drop the charges. No comment on this strange pairing of divine intervention and criminal behavior follows.

Jude was the least known of the 12 apostles. His story, largely undocumented, would unfold after the Ascension when the apostles faced their trials and tribulations as Christian missionaries. Trotta promises a history, but her focus wavers in the early chapters. "To best explain what Jude is," she writes, "we must consider what he is not." Defining an object by what it is not, an endeavor which continues for many pages, strains the reader's patience. Trotta includes examples of prayers, requests, and petitions as evidence of a Jude resurgence. But the petitions to the saint have an "Are you kidding?" feel: "A State Farm Insurance agent prays for a big promotion in Portland, Oregon--and gets it"; "A Sri Lankan steel fitter injures his back--learning of a little shrine in the mountains of his country, he hires people to carry him there, and soon he can go back to work." They seem depressing examples of faith at the "gimme-gimme" level.

As a long and meandering essay on the nature of faith and the popularity of this shadowy saint, with its digressions into cultural commentary (which is relentlessly unoriginal), it is unfocused. But when Trotta hits the road following in the footsteps of St. Jude through Rome, Edessa, and other parts of Mesopotamia, the narrative strengthens. However good the reporting and alluring the details, though, that first vile taste is never quite erased. Something creepy remains about citing successful real-estate deals and clemency from criminal prosecution as proof of a saint's intervening power. It's as if Trotta, high on Jude, has blinded herself to these dark, disquieting discrepancies. --Hollis Giammatteo

From Publishers Weekly

Veteran journalist Trotta examines the popular devotion to Jude, the patron saint of hopeless situations. While Trotta's account may contribute to Jude's popularity, this is not simply another pious hagiography. Trotta's book is part celebration of the devotion to Jude and part travelogue, as she sets out in quest of Jude's legacy from Baltimore to New York and from Edessa to Rome. Along the way, Trotta reports the stories of countless ordinary people who are devotees of Jude, among them Catholics, Protestants, an occasional Jew, AIDS patients, the superstitious and the theologically adept. Because of Jude's great and enduring popularity, Trotta concludes that St. Jude is the "rising saint of the age." Because Trotta lets Jude's admirers speak for themselves, the book is bound to gather many readers.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: HarperOne; 1 edition (May 19, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060682744
• ISBN-13: 978-0060682743
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.8 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,005,534 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

13 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderment and passion for the non-believer as well., March 9, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Jude: A Pilgrimage to the Saint of Last Resort (Hardcover)

I am neither a Catholic nor a believer in St. Jude, but this book is wonderful historical, anthropoligical and socialogical study in how Jude survives in legend and in devotion. The author writes beautifully, elegantly, magically and shows the how the inspiration of Jude provides comfort and solace to his followers. The beauty of St. Jude is not found in his large deeds, but in his personal and practical assistance to the afflicted. His small intercessions are not trivial, they are evidence of his kindness and his democratic accessability to all.

10 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars More comprehensive than Orsi, June 15, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (New York City, New York) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Jude: A Pilgrimage to the Saint of Last Resort (Hardcover)

I would say that Liz Trotta's work is more comprehensive than Orsi's Thank you St. Jude. Orsi spends his energies on the CLaritian Shrine of St. Jude in Chicago. If you read his book you would not know that there are numerous shrines of St. Jude: Baltimore, New York, Dominicans in Chicago, San Francisco. Trotta's work devotes chapters to all of these. Almost every story of St. Jude is recorded in her Jude. I believe that as a journalist she has a different mission from the Scholar, Robert Orsi with all his footnotes and bibliography. Both serve devotion to St. Jude! But with different styles and energies.

11 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An exceptional book about about the Saint of Hope!, June 23, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Jude: A Pilgrimage to the Saint of Last Resort (Hardcover)

Liz Trotta has given us an exceptionally fine -- magnificently written -- account of Saint Jude's Mission as she(herself)explores the routes of what is known of his Apostolic travels. Her book is a masterpiece in calling attention to this much neglected SAINT OF HOPE as he carries out Christ's instruction to him and the 11 other Apostles.