Scripture reading for today: 28 October 2020. Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles

 1st Reading: Ephesians 2:19-22

God has appointed apostles so that his people’s needs will be served

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone. In him, the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.

The Word of the Lord

Responsorial: Psalm 18: 2-5

Response: Their message goes out through all the earth

The heavens proclaim the glory of God

and the firmament shows forth the work of his hands.

Day unto day takes up the story

and night unto night makes known the message. (R./)

No speech, no word, no voice is heard

yet their span goes forth through all the earth,

their words to the utmost bounds of the world. (R./)

Gospel: Luke 6:12-19

Before selecting his twelve apostles, Jesus prays on the mountainside

Now during those days, he went out to the mountain to pray; and he spent the night in prayer to God. And when the day came, he called his disciples and chose twelve of them, whom he also named apostles: Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew, and James, and John, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James son of Alphaeus, and Simon, who was called the Zealot, and Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who became a traitor.

He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people from all Judea, Jerusalem, and the coast of Tyre and Sidon. They had come to hear him and to be healed of their diseases, and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him, for power came out from him and healed all of them.

The Gospel of the Lord

Reflections - Simon and Jude

On the various New Testament lists of the Twelve, the tenth and eleventh places are occupied by Simon the Zealot (also called Simon the Canaanean) and by Judas of James, also called Thaddaeus or Lebbaeus. (“Judas” corresponds to the Hebrew name “Judah.” Some ancient Christian writers say that Simon and Jude went together as missionaries to Persia, and were martyred there. If this is true, it explains why they are usually put together.

Simon is nowhere else mentioned except on these lists. Some modern writers have used “Zealot” as the basis for conjectures linking him and through him Jesus and his whole group, with the Zealot movement devoted to the assassination and violent insurrection. But Josephus tells us (Jewish War 4,3,9) that the movement he describes did not arise until shortly before the destruction of the Temple in the year 70 AD.

Judas (often called Jude in English) is variously named, but this is not surprising. Before the crucifixion, there would be a need to distinguish him among the apostles from Judas Iscariot, and after the crucifixion, there would be an additional reason for being emphatic about the distinction. After the Last Supper, it was Jude who asked Our Lord why he chose to reveal Himself only to the disciples. He received the reply: “If anyone loves me, he will keep my word, and my Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.” (John 14:22f) The New Testament Epistle of Jude was written by “Judas the brother of James,” which could refer to either Jude. In any case, we commemorate on this day (1) Simon the Zealot, one of the original Twelve; (2) Judas of James (also called Thaddaeus or Lebbaeus), also one of the original Twelve; and (3) Jude (or Judas) the brother of James and author of the Epistle, without settling the question of whether (2) and (3) are the same person.

In popular usage, St Jude is often prayed to as the patron of lost causes, the “saint of last resort,” the one you ask for help when all else fails. Maybe this is because his name reminds hearers of Judas Iscariot so that people were inclined to try one of the other apostles first, making Jude “the saint of last resort,” the one whom you ask only when nothing else seems to help!

Saint of the Day for October 28 | (1st Century) | Saints Simon and Jude’s Story

Jude is so named by Luke and Acts. Matthew and Mark call him Thaddeus. He is not mentioned elsewhere in the Gospels, except of course where all the apostles are mentioned. Scholars hold that he is not the author of the Letter of Jude. Actually, Jude had the same name as Judas Iscariot. Evidently, because of the disgrace of that name, it was shortened to “Jude” in English.

Simon is mentioned on all four lists of the apostles. On two of them, he is called “the Zealot.” The Zealots were a Jewish sect that represented an extreme of Jewish nationalism. For them, the messianic promise of the Old Testament meant that the Jews were to be a free and independent nation. God alone was their king, and any payment of taxes to the Romans—the very domination of the Romans—was a blasphemy against God. No doubt some of the Zealots were the spiritual heirs of the Maccabees, carrying on their ideals of religion and independence. But many were the counterparts of modern terrorists. They raided and killed, attacking both foreigners and “collaborating” Jews. They were chiefly responsible for the rebellion against Rome which ended in the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70.

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Readings for tomorrow:  29th October 2020 | taxi