The National Shrine of St Jude

On its 70th Anniversary, Faversham Life visits the Shrine of the once forgotten apostle, founded to bring hope to postwar generations

Words Posy Gentles Photographs Carmelite Charitable Trust and others

The National Shrine of St Jude is in an annex of Faversham’s Catholic parish church Our Lady of Mount Carmel, in Tanners St. This year is the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Shrine in Faversham and many pilgrims are expected to visit this centre of devotion to celebrate St Jude’s Feast Day on 25, 26 and 28 October.

St Jude was the ‘Forgotten Apostle’. Traditionally, he was rarely invoked in prayers as his name was similar to, and in some languages the same, as that of the traitor Judas Iscariot. St Jude was sometimes known as Jude Thaddeus or Lebbaeus, but references to him in the New Testament are few, and academic views of which of these references actually refer to him, several. As this saint of uncertain profile was so infrequently called on, it was believed that he would be more than willing to intercede in the most desperate cases for those who felt God had forgotten them, and he became known as the Apostle of Hope.

In the mid 20th century, in reaction to the horrors of two world wars, more and more people were praying to St Jude. The development of the Shrine in Faversham came from the work of the Carmelite Press. In 1926, the Carmelite Order returned to Britain for the first time since the Reformation, 400 years before, largely driven by Fr Elias Lynch and his brothers Malachy and Kilian. The Order’s centre established itself in Faversham and its parish priest was Fr Elias Lynch who founded the Carmelite Press and the Carmelite News in 1938.

When he was interviewed about the opening of the shrine in 1955, Fr Elias Lynch recalled he was getting more and more requests from the readers of the Carmelite News for prayer cards of St Jude and he didn’t have a picture of the forgotten disciple. He said: ‘I found an old German picture of St Jude with a club big enough to murder anyone, and I reproduced a quarter of a million pictures of St Jude and his club, with prayers in honour of St Jude, and sent them to all who called on us.

‘I got more than a surprise. I got a tidal wave. People started sending in masses of thanksgiving to St Jude; donations to the Shrine of St Jude – which didn’t exist; petitions to the Shrine of St Jude – which didn’t exist.’ Fr Elias saw the only thing to do was to build the shrine.

Matt Betts, the Shrine’s present day development manager, says: ‘It was entirely funded from donations which flooded in. People would send money for one brick. There was a big resurgence in Catholic art in the 1950s and work for the shrine was commissioned by Fr Elias.’

Many of these artists are represented in the church and Shrine. Richard Joseph King (1907-1974) created stained glass windows. In the Shrine Information Centre, there is a statue of St Jude by Philip Lindsey Clark (1889-1977), and a statue by Adam Kossowski, a Polish artist who had been imprisoned in Soviet labour camps during the war and came as a refugee to Britain.

Kossowski also created the ceramic holy water stoops and plaques, including a depiction of the martyrdom of St Jude and the crucifixion of Christ. (More of Kossowski’s work can be seen at Aylesford Priory, commissioned by the prior of the Friars, Fr Malachy Lynch, brother of Fr Elias as part of the site’s restoration to a place of worship. The Carmelites had first come to Aylesford in the 13th century and were forced out in 1538. The site came up for sale in 1949 and was purchased by the Carmelite Order.) Carvings of the 12 Apostles around the apse in the Inner Shrine are by Anthony Foster (1909-1959), an assistant to Eric Gill. Original paintings by Michael Leigh were lost in the fire of 2004 and have been replaced with icons painted by Sister Petra Clare, a Benedictine hermit living in Scotland.

In the inner shrine is the Augsberg Reliquary. This is a modern copy of a silver monstrance made in 1547, and has been modified to display the relic, a bone fragment, of St Jude.

The Inner Shrine also houses the statue of St Jude, made from 16th century Spanish gilt and polychrome wood, which is the focus of pilgrims’ devotion. Fr Elias wrote in the Carmelite News how the statue came to be donated: ‘The Faversham statue of St. Jude turned up in a peculiar way. A man wrote to tell me that his wife was depressed and sorely afflicted because her son had been lost in a submarine at sea in the second world war. He asked me to pray to St Jude that God would give her patience, resignation and fortitude. This we did. I wrote to him to say that we did not have a good statue of St Jude and he wrote back to say that he had seen one in an antique shop in London, Spanish 16th century. Could he donate it to the Church? Of course I said yes and down it came. It certainly looked like an Apostle, but it was the most Mongolian looking statue I had ever seen. There was an element about it that was quite impressive and the artist had not spared either his time or labour in the carving. The donor asked me to put a little plaque under it, asking prayers for his son lost at sea. I said to him: “It is a little too soon yet. Wait a while.” Sure enough, 10 weeks later the son turned up as a prisoner of war on a captured German sea raider. The plaque was never put up.’

However, there is a sad postscript to the tale, as Matthew Betts recounts. As the war continued, that son and one of his brothers was lost at sea. 10 years ago, the Diamond Jubilee of the Shrine, a surviving son, James Murphy was present at the placing of a plaque which reads: ‘This statue of St Jude was donated by Michael Joseph and Mary Bridget Murphy of Hythe, Kent, in memory of their sons Matthew and Michael who died on active service in the MN [Merchant Navy] during World War II. RIP.’

Matthew Betts sends out four issues of the Carmelite News a year all over the world and, as well as the Feast of St Jude in October, there is a summer celebration which is held outside. ‘We have such a beautiful location here with the gardens running along Westbrook Stream,’ he says. Most of the pilgrims are from the UK, but there is a man who comes every year to both events from Nigeria. There is also a strong online presence.

Fr Elias Lynch saw St Jude in particular as a saint for all denominations. He said: ‘St Jude may be the forgotten Apostle, but he is at the same time a common meeting ground between Anglicans and Catholics, on a devotional level. He was not in pre-Reformation days much identified with the old Catholic life in Europe. He was a forgotten saint.”

The Shrine of St Jude is open every day from 9am to 5pm for all visitors and there is an excellent information centre. Faversham Life visited last at the end of a muddy December walk following the Augustine Camino route from Doddington to Faversham (See the story here).

For much more information, visit www.stjudeshrine.org.uk

Text: Posy Gentles. Photographs: Carmelite Charitable Trust and others