Feast of the Apostles Simon and Jude

According to tradition the apostles, Simon the Zealot and Jude Thaddeus, whose feast we are celebrating, preached the Gospel together in Persia where they were martyred. Simon, by being sawed in two, and Jude by being hacked to death with a long-handled axe.

The Zealots were an extreme form of Jewish nationalism that sought to fulfill the ideal of Maccabean independence by means of raiding and killing. They were the equivalent of modern-day terrorists, and they were chiefly responsible for the rebellion against Rome which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 AD. But Simon learned from Jesus how to change people through gentleness and love rather than by force and terrorism.

Jude Thaddeus became a missionary of what the world considers impossible: i.e. participation of human beings in the divine life of God. So, it is fitting that he is the patron of hopeless cases. For Christians there is only one place where real hopelessness exists, and that is hell. But for those who love God all things are possible, even participation in divine life.

May the intercession of Simon the Zealot and Jude Thaddeus help us to become sharers in God’s divine nature, the Mystical Body of Christ.