28 October 2014
Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles
Today we celebrate the feast of two Apostles, Simon and Jude. We don’t know much about either. Luke nicknamed Simon “The Zealot”. Does this mean he was a red hot Pharisee, like Saul before he became Paul? And Jude, alias Thaddeus – he is a real mystery. At he Last Supper he asked Jesus a question that that indicated that even then he and the others didn’t know who Jesus, the Messiah, was. But thank God for the dumb question. Jesus’ answer takes up half of Chapter 14 in John’s Gospel. And what a treasure that is.
These two were members of a very diversified group. Not much of a common, yet what joined them together was they all received the same calling from Jesus. Where they preached the Gospel is not known with certainty. But “neither the planter nor the waterer counts for anything, only God, who gives growth.”
So the feast of these two apostles reminds us that each of us has a calling to announce the same message, but in very different ways. Peter, their fellow apostle, wrote, “God has called [us] out of darkness into his wonderful light”. Like Simon and Jude we are not to keep that light hidden, but to make it known to those to whom we are sent.