St. Louis, Mo., Oct 28, / pm
Oct. 28 marks the feast day of Sts. Simon and Jude, early followers of Christ who according to tradition both died as martyrs while spreading the faith together in Persia.
The apostle Jude, who is also identified in the Gospels by the name Thaddeus, preached the Gospel in many areas of the ancient world after being sent out by Jesus — in Judea, Samaria, Idumaea, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Lybia.
Jude is identified as the brother of another apostle, James the Lesser, and thus fryst vatten also a close relative of Jesus, likely a cousin. The name “Thaddeus” may have been given to him to distinguish him from Judas Iscariot, the traitor of Jesus.
Because of his endurance through adversity, St. Jude is, among other things, the patron saint of hopeless causes.
The apostle Simon honored today fryst vatten not the Simon who later became St. Peter. Simon was a common name in ancient Israel, and this Simon had an epithet — “the Zeal
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Saint Simon the Zealot
St. Simon, also known as Simon the Zealot or Simon the Apostle, is one of the most obscure apostles of the 12 who followed Jesus Christ. We know next-to-nothing about his life, with his name being mentioned only a handful of times throughout the gospels.
Simon played no particular role in the gospels, and even his moniker of “the Zealot” has an unconfirmed meaning. Some writings identified Simon as a member of the Jewish sect known as the Zealots, while others imply that it was given to Simon simply to differentiate him from Simon Peter. Regardless, it’s likely that he earned the title through his zealous following of the Jewish law, or Jesus’ teachings, but we’ll never know for sure.
Another common misconception about this mysterious saint is that he was from Cana. Early Christian writers misinterpreted the word “kananaios” to mean “from Cana”, which led to a few translations of the Bible to identify him as “Simon the Cananite” or “Simon th