Tomorrow is the Feast of Saints Simon and Jude and, therefore, the patronal feast day of the Catholic Community of Saint Jude in DeWitt. Happy feast day!
“I’m still getting to know Saint Jude,” says Father David Speicher who is into his fourth year as pastor in DeWitt.
“Although he is often called the ‘saint of impossible causes’, I like to think of him as the ‘apostle of hope’, a witness of God’s gift of hope to us in the midst of the challenges of life even when things seem impossible.”
Simon and Jude were two of the 12 Apostles of Jesus Christ. Their names occur together in the prayers of the Canon of the Mass. This is, possibly, because both preached the Gospel in Mesopotamia and Persia in Asia where it is said they had both been sent.
The parish of the Catholic Community of Saint Jude in DeWitt has its roots back in 1967 when a group of Catholics from the town asked Bishop Alexander Zaleski of Lansing to consider establishing a Catholic church in DeWitt.
The first Mass was offered on September 28, 1969, at the Fuerstenau Jr. High School with Father John Shinners, the pastor of Saint Thérèse in Lansing, as celebrant. The next year the DeWitt Catholic community was formally granted the status of a mission in the care of the priests at Saint Thérèse. In 1971, the mission in DeWitt was formally established as a parish of the Diocese of Lansing with Father Jerome Schmitt as the first pastor. The present pastor is Father David Speicher.
Please pray today for all the clergy and lay faithful of the Catholic Community of Saint Jude in DeWitt, both alive and deceased. RIP. Saints Simon and Jude, pray for them.
• For more information on the Catholic Community of Saint Jude in DeWitt go to: https://stjudedewitt.com/