Feast day: October 28

Sts. Simon & Jude

Apostles · 1st century

Patron of Desperate causes, hopeless cases (Jude)

Two of the Twelve: Simon the Zealot and Jude Thaddeus, traditionally martyred together in Persia.

Simon and Jude were two of the twelve apostles, honored together in the Western Church on October 28. Of their individual lives the Gospels tell us very little beyond their names, but the Church has always held them in honor as among the chosen Twelve who were the foundation of the Church, eyewitnesses of the risen Lord, and bearers of the Gospel to the nations.

Simon is called 'the Zealot' or 'the Cananean,' titles that may mean he had belonged to the fervent Jewish party that burned for the law and the liberation of Israel — a zeal he carried, transformed, into the service of Christ. Of his apostolic labors little certain is known, but tradition sends him to preach in distant lands and to die a martyr.

Jude, also called Thaddeus, is carefully distinguished in the Gospels from Judas Iscariot the traitor — 'Judas, not the Iscariot.' At the Last Supper it was he who asked the Lord why he would reveal himself to his disciples and not to the world. He is traditionally the author of the short Epistle of Jude in the New Testament, a fervent warning to hold fast to the faith once delivered.

By ancient tradition the two apostles preached together in Persia, where both were martyred — and so they share a feast. St. Jude is best known today as the patron of desperate and hopeless cases: it is said that because his name so resembled that of the traitor Judas, people long hesitated to seek his intercession, so that he became all the more eager to aid those who finally turn to him in their most impossible needs.

Jude became patron of hopeless causes possibly because his name resembled Judas — nobody prayed to him unless they were desperate. Now he's among the most invoked saints on earth.

Image: Anthony van Dyck (Public domain), via Wikimedia Commons.

Source: newadvent.org/cathen/13796b.htm