Feast of Saint
Simon and Saint Jude, apostles
(Ephesians 2:19-22; Luke 6:12-16)
Toward the end of the calendar year, today we honor the least
of the twelve apostles. With the
exception of Judas, the betrayer, Simon the Zealot, and Judas, the son of
James, are always listed last in the lists of Jesus intimate circle. Interestingly, in Luke’s gospel, from which we
read today, Judas is listed before Simon.
In Matthew and Mark, however, Judas, or actually Thaddeus whom we
associate with Judas, has the final position.
We might ask ourselves why. It could be that these apostles are the most
obscure. That is they left the least
historical record. By the time of the
writing of the gospels, at least a generation after Jesus’ death, almost
nothing was remember of them. In any
case the two offer us valuable instructions today.
Simon is mentioned as a Zealot, which is one particularly
fervent about religion. In time Zealots
will take up arms to free Israel from Roman rule. But it would be wrong to equate Simon with later
revolutionaries. He does show us that
Jesus includes all kinds of people among his disciples. There are tax collectors willing to cooperate
with foreign rulers and zealots who mistrust Romans as much as cats mistrust
dogs.
Because Judas’ name is the same as the traitor’s, in
English at least we prefer to call him “Jude.”
There are legends of his whereabouts in the first century, but for the
most part his fate is unknown. Yet he
has become one of the most popular of apostles.
The reason for this is simple.
Many people identify with St. Jude because they feel lowly like
him. His popularity gives witness to the
saying of Jesus that the last shall be first in God’s kingdom.
