Saints Simon and Jude

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Saints Simon and Jude             

         SAINTS SIMON AND JUDE, APOSTLES

From a commentary on the gospel of John
by Saint Cyril of Alexandria, bishop

As the Father sent me, so I am sending you

   Our Lord Jesus Christ has appointed certain men to be guides and teachers of the world and stewards of his divine mysteries. Now he bids them to shine out like lamps and to cast out their light not only over the land of the Jews but over every country under the sun and over people scattered in all directions and settled in distant lands.
   That man has spoken truly who said: No one takes honor upon himself, except the one who is called by God, for it was our Lord Jesus Christ who called his own disciples before all others to a most glorious apostolate. These holy men became the pillar and mainstay of the truth, and Jesus said that he was sending them just as the Father had sent him.
   By these words he is making clear the dignity of the apostolate and the incomparable glory of the power given to them, but he is also, it would seem, giving them a hint about the methods they are to adopt in their apostolic mission. For if Christ thought it necessary to send out his intimate disciples in this fashion, just as the Father had sent him, then surely it was necessary that they whose mission was to be patterned on that of Jesus should see exactly why the Father had sent the Son. And so Christ interpreted the character of his mission to us in a variety of ways. Once he said: I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance. And then at another time he said: I have come down from heaven, not to do my own  will, but the will of him who sent me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

For God sent his Son into the world, not to condemn the world, but that the world might be saved through him. 
   Accordingly, in affirming that they are sent by him just as he was sent by the Father, Christ sums up in a few words the approach they themselves should take to their ministry. From what he said they would gather that it was their vocation to call sinners to repentance, top heal those who were sick whether in body or spirit, to seek in all their dealings never to do their own will but the will of him who sent them, and as far as possible to save the world by their teaching.
   Surely it is in all these respects that we find his holy disciples striving to excel. To ascertain this is no great labor; a single reading of the Acts of the Apostles or of Saint Paul's writings is enough.

Source:  The Liturgy of the Hours - Office of Readings 

Saint Simon is usually named eleventh in the list of the Apostles. Nothing is known of him except that he was born at Cana and is surnamed "The Zealot."
Saint Jude, also called Thaddeus, was the apostle who asked the Lord at the Last Supper why he had manifested himself only to his disciples and not to the whole world. (John 14:22)

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More about St. Simon and St. Jude

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Magnificat-Lives of the Saints

SAINTS SIMON and JUDE
Apostles and Martyrs
(† First Century)

Simon was a simple Galilean, a brother of Jesus, as the ancients called one’s close relatives — aunts, uncles, first cousins; he was one of the Saviour’s four first cousins, with James the Less, Jude and Joseph, all sons of Mary, the wife of Alpheus, or Cleophas, either name being a derivative of the Aramaic Chalphai. The latter was the brother of Saint Joseph, according to tradition. All the sons of this family were raised at Nazareth near the Holy Family. (See the Gospel of Saint Matthew 13:53-58.) Simon, Jude and James were called by Our Lord to be Apostles, pillars of His Church, and Joseph the Just was His loyal disciple.

Saint Simon the Zealot or the Zealous, was the name this Apostle bore among the twelve. He preached in Egypt, Mauritania (Spain), and Lybia, leaving behind him the fertile hills of Galilee, where he had been engaged in the healthful cultivation of the vineyards and olive gardens. He later rejoined his brother, Saint Jude, in Persia, where they labored and died together. At first they were respected by the king, for they had manifested power over two ferocious tigers who had terrorized the land. With the king, sixty thousand Persians became Christians, and churches rose over the ruins of the idolatrous temples.

But the ancient enemy, who never sleeps, rose up, and when the two went elsewhere the pagans commanded them to sacrifice to the sun. Both Apostles, just before that time, had seen Our Lord amid His Angels. Simon said to Jude, “One of the Angels said to me, I will take you out of the temple and bring the building down upon their heads. I answered him, Let it not be so; perhaps some of them will be converted.” They prayed for mercy for the people and offered their lives to God. Saint Simon told the crowd that their gods were only demons, and ordered them to come out of the statues, which they did, revealing themselves under hideous forms. But the idolaters fell on the Apostles and massacred them, while they blessed God and prayed for their murderers.

Saint Jude has left us a short but powerful epistle, written after the death of his brother James, bishop of Jerusalem, and addressed to the new Christians being tempted by false brethren and heretics.

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Saints Simon and Jude

Who Is Saint Jude Thaddeus?/ST SIMON, SURNAMED THE ZEALOT, APOSTLE

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[Tax-chick]

Thanks, this is very informative. I like “Simon the Zealot”; he must have been an action-oriented person.

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And I love St. Jude, the patron of hopeless causes.

BTW, our Mission priest encouraged me to say the Chaplet of Divine Mercy every day to bring my children completely back to the one, holy, Catholic and apostolic Church!

[Tax-chick]

What a good idea. I believe I’ll do the same, to prevent their leaving!