Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.
Saints Simon the Zealot and Judas Thaddeus occupy the last places in the list of the apostles, perhaps because they were the youngest. Today's Gospel tells how they were chosen by the Lord for this mission. An apostle is literally one who is sent, and Christ's apostles are those whom He sent to continue the mission He had received from His Father. They are the most qualified witnesses of all the Lord's teaching, which is made up both of words and of works or deeds.
When it became necessary to replace Judas Iscariot, Saint Peter said that the replacement would have to be one of the men "who accompanied us the whole time the Lord Jesus came and went among us, beginning from the baptism of John until the day on which He was taken up from us." So this is the qualification for an apostle. It implies that Saints Simon and Jude had to be witnesses to the whole public life of Jesus.
After Pentecost, Christ sent the apostles throughout the world with the threefold mission of preaching the Gospel, celebrating the sacraments, and governing the Church. We do not have many reliable details about the lives of Saints Simon and Jude, but they shared in the privileges and trials common to all the apostles, and therefore are among the greatest saints in the Church.
Saint Simon was called a "Zealot." This was the name of a party of revolutionaries zealous for the Jewish law, but not during the earthly life of Jesus. This party came into existence around the time of the first revolution of the Jews against Rome, some thirty years after Pentecost. So this is not what "zealot" means in the case of Saint Simon. We could get a better idea from the fact that Elijah the prophet said that he was "zealous for the Lord," or from the fact that Saint Paul repeatedly describes himself as a zealous Jew prior to his conversion.
In his case, this involved a zeal for the law that went even to the point of using violence against those who seemed to be deviating from the law of Moses and teaching others to do likewise, namely against the Christians. It could imply something similar in the case of Simon—a zeal so great that it would even give place to violence, in which case Jesus would have taught him a better way to love the law of the Lord. But fundamentally, the word "zealot" at the time of Jesus simply indicated outstanding zeal for the law of the Lord.
When Saints Matthew and Mark list the apostles, they call Simon the "Canaanean." This doesn't mean, as some thought, that he was from Cana or was a Canaanite. It's simply the Aramaic word for "zealot." So Saints Matthew and Mark give us the original Aramaic epithet, while Saint Luke translates it for us Gentiles who don't know Aramaic.
The other apostle we venerate today is called Judas of James by Saint Luke, and Thaddeus by Saints Matthew and Mark. "Judas of James" is usually understood by scholars today to mean "Judas, son of James," and this is how our lectionary translates it. But traditionally, it's thought to mean "Judas, brother of James," as the author of one of the letters of the New Testament identifies himself.
There were at least two apostles named Judas. In English, we usually call the saint "Jude" and the traitor "Judas," but in Greek and Latin they have the same name. Among the apostles, the saint was called "Thaddeus" in order to distinguish him from the other Judas. The meaning of this name "Thaddeus" is also disputed. It could be either Greek or Aramaic. If it's Greek, it could be a shortened form of a name like Theodore or Theodotus. It wasn't uncommon for Jews to have two different names—one in Greek for dealing with the Greek-speaking world and another in a Semitic language for their own people.
But it could also be the Aramaic word that means "breast," and thus means something like "big-hearted," "magnanimous," or "loving." Some manuscripts of St. Matthew's Gospel also have a third name, Lebeus, which would come from Leb, the Hebrew word for "heart." Possibly, Saint Jude had these two similar nicknames because of his big heart or great love.
Unlike Saint Simon, Saint Jude does speak once in the Gospels. At the Last Supper, he asked, "Lord, how is it that You will manifest Yourself to us and not to the world?" Our Lord's mysterious and profound reply was, "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." After His death, Christ manifests Himself only to those who are open to loving Him. It will remain this way until the last day, when He will become manifest to all as the Judge. Christ fittingly explains this truth about love to a man with a big heart, assuming that that is the correct interpretation of his name. And also the revelations of Saint Bridget indicate that that would be the meaning of the name.
Saint Jude has been credited with the authorship, as I said, of one of the letters of the New Testament. He writes to warn against heretics and to confirm those who hear his letter in "the faith that was once for all delivered to the saints." In heaven, he has the privilege of being the patron of impossible causes. Because his name is Judas, like the traitor, he was in danger of being forgotten. Perhaps this is why God made him so powerful.
Saint Bernard cherished a relic of Saint Jude throughout his lifetime and asked that that relic be buried with him as a sign of the reverence in which he held the saint, noting that the apostle had helped him to safeguard his purity. Again, the whole idea of love—love for our Lord that keeps us from falling into impure forms of love. Saint Bridget also had a special devotion to Saint Jude. After Christ appeared to her in a vision and told her to turn to Saint Jude with great faith and confidence, for, said the Lord, "in accordance with his surname, Thaddeus, the amiable, the loving one, he will show himself most willing to give help." She received the grace she asked for and afterwards made known to others the s
aint's power to obtain impossible graces.
In another vision, Christ ordered Saint Bridget to dedicate an altar to Saint Jude in a church that she was making. "The fifth altar," He said, "must be for Thaddeus, who with the purity of his heart will undoubtedly conquer the devil." It's not certain where Saints Simon and Jude died, but the story that they died in Persia seems the most likely. Their relics are venerated in Saint Peter's Basilica under the altar dedicated to Saint Joseph in the left transept.
Praised be Jesus and Mary, now and forever.