Original Gangsta
Saint:
Date: 3/18/2009
From:
i7nvd 
I haz golden medal.
Jude is the patron saint of lost or hopeless causes. He's probably really happy about that! I don't think it's because he was a lost cause... more likely, his veneration as the hopeless refuge saint came about due to his New Testament letter, in which he stresses the virtue of perseverance, even in the face of difficulties.
I is not da uva joOd!
I've heard that, since he was the second Jud(as) (the first we all can remember), people avoided praying to him for fear that the prayers would get "mixed up" (as in, Judas Iscariot would hear them - which would be a bad idea)
The only people who prayed to him were people who had no other choice - who had prayed to every other saint they knew, and still gotten nothing. Eventually, he became known for it, and thus became the patron of lost causes.
Very funny!
I don't know about the 'patron-ness' word, but I guess that could work. Don't say it too fast, though ;-P
What you have said is quite true. And even today, most people seem to never think of Jude or have particular devotions to him. If you were a pragmatic person, though, you would realize that since he gets less publicity, he'd probably have more time to respond to your prayers ;-)
I can haz swag?
Not only Saint Jude get a bad rep but also St. Philomena. As lolsaints said, people are starting to realize that those saints who get less publicity are usually the one who have more time to respond to prayers and, possibly, might even have been more humble and attentive to God's will than those more famous.
This is just my 3 pennies and a dime I'm contributing.
clg01: You bring up an interesting point that I don't think a lot of Catholics think about.
In Heaven, not all things are equal. Heaven is not a communist country, as some would have you believe. Just because everything that gets to Heaven has reached its level of perfection doesn't mean that everything's the same. Heck, that'd make Heaven a rather boring place!
Instead, we believe that there is God, the almighty Triune ruler over all of Heaven and Earth. There are the angels and the saints, of whom some are meant to be leaders, and others more humble worshippers, but all equally children of God. This doesn't mean that Saint Peter is better than Saint Simon Stock. Rather, this means that each Angel and Saint has his own purpose and existence.
So when someone says that we'll all be the same when we get to Heaven, I say, "bah!"