28 October 2017
Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles
The Gospel reading for Simon and Jude comes up on a fairly regular basis. Basically, if it is an apostle’s feast, and the apostle has no other reference in the New Testament, this is the Gospel used. It is the Gospel for the anonymous apostle. We honor them because Jesus called them and they responded, even though they may not have any particular deed to their names while on earth. So even though we have no other particular reading for them, we remember Jesus’ call and their response—which is no small thing.
Often, we see in society a concern with making a name for oneself or making history. We might be tempted to ask what we will do that will still matter in the generations to come, and lament if we cannot come up with any answer. Simon and Jude, as well as the other “anonymous apostles,” and all the other saints both canonized and not, remind us that anonymity is not a bad thing, and that there is more to life than history. Over the course of their apostolic ministry, Simon and Jude must have brought many people to Jesus, even though it never made the books. Their lives were not contentious, their deaths were not dramatic (though tradition holds that they were martyred), but for those who became Christian because of them, their existence was a God-send.