4OurMembers_StSimonStJude

St. Simon and St. Jude

Sts. Simon and Jude were Apostles of the Lord Jesus Christ.
After many years of evangelizing after Jesus' death and Resurrection, these men are said to have suffered martyrdom together after having gone as missionaries to Suanis, a city of Persia. Because of this, they are honored on the same day. The Church celebrates their feast day on October 28.

Significance and Historical Background

St. Simon is referred to in Scripture by Matthew and Mark as the "Cananaean" and by Luke as "the Zealot." Both titles mean the same, zealous for the Jewish Law, and distinguish him from the Simon whom the Lord renamed Peter, or Rock. It is unclear whether he belonged to the political party of that day, which was known as the Zealots, or was simply known for his religious zeal.
However, it is highly likely that even if this Simon was not exactly a member of the nationalist movement of Zealots, he was at least marked by passionate attachment to his Jewish identity, hence, for God, his People and Divine Law.

St. Jude is one of two Apostles with this name. The other, usually called Judas, is the infamous Judas Iscariot, known for his betrayal of Jesus. Here we refer to Jude Thaddeus, the saint increasingly popular as the patron of hopeless causes. He is also the author of the New Testament book the Epistle of Jude.

Not much is known about the lives of Simon and Jude from the Gospels. Even so, God chose these men, granted them holiness, worked through them in the lives of many in their own time, and continues to work through them today.

A major concern of the writing in the Epistle of Jude is to put Christians on guard against those who make a pretext of God's grace to excuse their own licentiousness and corrupt their brethren with unacceptable teachings, introducing division within the Church "in their dreamings" (v. 8).

Reflection

As in the case of all the apostles except for Peter, James and John, we are faced with men who are really unknown, and we are struck by the fact that their holiness is simply taken to be a gift of Christ. He chose some unlikely people: a former Zealot, a former (crooked) tax collector, an impetuous fisherman, two ambitious "sons of thunder," and a man named Judas Iscariot.

Click to go back