Thank You, St. Jude: Women`s Devotion to the Patron Saint of Hopeless Causes

By Robert A. Orsi

Book Overview

St. Jude, patron saint of hopeless causes, is the most popular saint of the American Catholic laity, particularly among women. This fascinating book describes how the cult of St. Jude originated in 1929, traces the rise in Jude's popularity over the next decades, and investigates the circumstances that led so many Catholic women to feel hopeless and to turn to St. Jude for help.

Robert A. Orsi tells us that the women who were drawn to St. Jude--daughters and granddaughters of immigrants from southern and eastern Europe and Ireland--were the first generations of Catholic women to make lives for themselves outside of their ethnic enclaves. Orsi explores the ambitions and dilemmas of these women as they dealt with the pressures of the Depression and the Second World War, made modern marriages for themselves, entered the workplace, took care of relatives in their old neighborhoods, and raised children in circumstances very different from those of their mothers and grandmothers. Drawing on testimonies written in the periodicals devoted to St. Jude and on interviews with women who felt their lives were changed by St. Jude's intervention, Orsi shows how devotion to St. Jude enabled these women to negotiate their way amid the conflicting expectations of their two cultures--American and Catholic.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0300076592
• ISBN13: 9780300076592
• Release Date: November 1998
• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 1.12 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 5.9" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Interesting stories behind a devotion

Orsi's book focuses on the human side of religion. In his book he gives a very interesting back stage view on what at a first glace seems to be a common and shared devotion - but in reality is a patchwork of ideas and practices of a very diverse group of people with very diverse histories, beliefs, desires and coping mechanisms. Orsi is a great storyteller. He tells not only the story of St. Jude (and his genesis in the depression years), but mostly of the people who venerate jude, and the unique stories behind their veneration. I would highly recommend this book to anyone who is genuinely interested in people and religion and in the question of what people do with religion and what religion does with people!

Detailed history of St.Jude's popularity beginning in theUSA

This book offers the reader a detailed acccount of St.Jude's history and popularity in America. The author interviewed countless women in Chicago to learn of their common themes that brought them to honor St.Jude. As a devout friend of St.Jude I found this book to be fascinating.