By August 1933, Fr. Judge’s health was starting to take a turn for the worse. At the end of that month, he celebrated his last Mass at the Cenacle in Silver Spring, MD, before entering the hospital.
During his months of confinement in the hospital he spent his time in quiet prayer. The rosary seldom left his hands. Often he said, “I’ve made a contract with God. All I have to do is to say Jesus. I cannot pray, for I’m sick.” Father Thomas Augustine Judge died, age 65, at 3:00 p.m. on November 23, 1933, with no sign of struggle or pain, surrounded by two Sisters, the attending priest, Mother Mary of the Incarnate Word, and several of the Brothers from Silver Spring. The cause of death on the official certificate was listed as “cerebral embolus”. On Wednesday morning, November 29, at 8:00 a.m., his spiritual sons and daughters closed his casket for the last time and accompanied his body through the streets of Philadelphia to the chapel of St. Vincent’s Seminary in Germantown where he had attended seminary and spent the first years of his priestly ministry. Father Judge was buried beside Mother Boniface in Holy Sepulchre Cemetery in Philadelphia in the plot of the Missionary Servants of the Most Blessed Trinity.
Taken from God’s Valiant Warrior by Dennis Berry, S.T.
