In Jude, two apostles who would become the cornerstone of the Church, that is, they would
be amongst those rocks that the Lord would build the foundation of their Church, and
as is the case with many of the apostles, not a lot of personal details from their personal
life have come to us through tradition, and this merely attests to their complete zeal
and dedication to the Lord in the spreading of his teachings throughout the whole world.
Indeed, Simon and Jude would pair up, as tradition tells us, and would go forth, ultimately,
they would both receive their martyrdom in the land of Persia, after many apostolic
missions to that land and to other lands, they would finally seal themselves in the
foundation of the Church by having their own blood mortar their souls to the very foundation
of the institute that our Lord came to establish, and so the lives of these apostles, as with
all the saints, teach us that we are not to be judged according to the standards of
the world, but according to the standards of God, that we are not to strive for worldly
things, but for divine standards, and it is only this by which we can be saved.
One of the traditions that has come down to us is how did St. Jude become the patron of
impossible causes?
Well, it is probably according to the majority of opinion, the fact that his name was intimately
close to that of Judas Iscariot, who betrayed the Lord, and so many in the early Church
would go to the other apostles.
In order to resolve things, the tradition arose that they would only go to St. Jude
in desperate cases, that is, as the final recourse because the other apostles would
in some way be unsuccessful in resolving that which those came to them for, and so, it attests
more to the weakness of the mystical body, this tradition, than to the holiness of the
apostle.
It is an excellent example of that.
A good example of that is the apostle John.
Here it says,
that often we should not because we do not judge by man's standards but by God's standards. Of
course, it is not the name that made Judas the traitor. It was his will to disobey the Lord and
his mission and ultimately to abandon his vocation as apostle to be a foundation stone of the church
and it was Saint Jude whose name also in scripture tells us was Judas. It was Saint Jude who chose
to serve the Lord with his whole mind, with his whole heart, and his whole soul and with Saint
Simon to go forth and to truly obey that final command of the Lord to teach all nations. Many
of us will not be called to give our lives as these two apostles and all the apostles would
although in the case of Saint John, we do not celebrate him strictly as a martyr. The church
tells us that we can offer his mass in honor of his martyrdom.
Because it was only by a miraculous preservation that he was spared the royal crown of martyrdom.
And so while we may not be called to martyrdom, we are called always and everywhere to give that daily
obedience that the apostles first teach us and in order to do this we must turn to the gifts of the
apostles that is that which was entrusted to them by the Lord, the full integrity of truth and the
sacramental life of the mystical body.
And so we must truly be honored to be amongst those who can trace the origin of their church
back to these very apostles and ultimately to Saint Peter, the head of the apostles and
hence to Christ, the one who founded the one true church. And so the apostolic succession
is proof of the unity of the Catholic Church, that she is the one vanguard of truth, the
one institute by which all receive holiness.
Because she has been entrusted with all the gifts of the Savior, both those gifts of mind and of
heart, and most especially that those gifts are ultimately sealed by the sacramental life.
For we can boast much about the teaching of Jesus Christ, but then again Satan could outdo any of us
in his catechetical knowledge.
And so it is not strictly speaking knowledge of our catechism that saves, but that we love the God who
gave us that knowledge, because he deemed it, because he deemed us worthy to become man in order to
sacrifice his life for our sake, so that first the apostles would be strengthened and then his
mission, that is the mission of Christ, would continue until the end of time through the
apostolic succession.
And so let us turn to these great saints, Saint Simon and Saint Jude, especially in this time in
which we truly find ourselves.
In a desperate situation, in a desperate cause, for Christianity, especially Catholic Christianity,
seems to be on the retreat in all the nooks and crannies and all the cities of the world.
And so it is at this precise moment that we have great opportunity to exercise the supernatural faith
of the apostles, for they went out into a world, twelve in number when Judas was replaced by Saint
Matthias.
Twelve in number with humanly speaking an impossible mission, that is, they were instructed, the twelve of them,
uneducated according to worldly standards, but highly educated according to divine standards, and they did not
fear what man would say would be impossible, and so they went forth one by one and two by two and began to
preach to all the pagan world, and indeed in the case of Saint Simon and Jude, it is said that the world is
filled with such exorcisms of such depths that Jesus has died un fragments and pieces of that truth brought from living will.
So now the time has come for me to present you the Bible in itsire respect through psalm 39, chapter 14, the opening
kahama, in
allocating
the
other
references
to dancing and communities.
Now,
that the siren song of Satan is always in the end nothing but rubble,
and it is the word of God that they were entrusted with and brought forth to all nations
that is truly the word of life and that word which is only worth possessing.
And so, in our day and age, when it seems desperate by human standards,
let us, like the apostles, depend entirely upon the supernatural,
receiving our strength from the sacramental life of the Church,
and then going forth and to prepare the world for the coming again of Christ
through the apostolic mission of his successors, the apostles.
Let us strive to prepare all hearts so that those hearts become ready
when the call to baptism is given to them, and then they persevere
in that which the apostles gave to the world, that is, the sacramental life of the Church
and the truth which Jesus Christ has promised to hand on through the world
to them until the end of time.
And so, we, as the scripture says, to whom much is given, much will be expected.
And while that statement is true for all souls, it is especially true for every single member
of the mystical body, for we will not be judged necessarily by our natural gifts,
but only insofar as we have allowed grace to transform those natural gifts
into the supernatural life of the Church.
And so, we have been given much.
No matter how great a sinner we are in the mystical body of Christ,
the very fact that we are members of the safe haven in this world
means that we have to give much back to the Lord.
And so, let us strive to give everything, as St. Simon in Jude did,
even until our death, and if the Lord so wills, the death of the martyr.
But let us also strive with them to experience that white martyrdom
which they experienced every day of their lives.
Going forth with a humanly impossible mission,
but going forth in joy and in honor that they were called by the Lord
to give that truth and ultimately their very lives for the sake of Christ
who first gave himself for their sake,
so that all may ultimately attain union with the Blessed Trinity
for all eternity in heaven.
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