Saints of the day: Jude and Simon

St. Jude, known as Thaddaeus, was a brother of St. James the Lesser and a relative of Jesus. According to ancient writings, he preached the Gospel in Judea, Samaria, Idumaea, Syria, Mesopotamia, and Lybia. Eusebius writes that Jude returned to Jerusalem in the year 62, and assisted at the election of his brother, St. Simeon, as bishop of Jerusalem. 

Jude is the author of an epistle to the Churches of the East, in particular to Jewish converts, against the heresies of the Simonians, Nicolaites, and Gnostics. 

Jude was beaten to death with a club and then beheaded post-mortem in 1st century Persia. His relics reside at St. Peter’s in Rome, at Rheims, and at Toulouse, France. 

St. Jude is the patron of desperate situations, forgotten causes, hospital workers, impossible causes, and the diocese of St. Petersburg, Florida. 

St. Simon the Zealot

Little is known about the life of St. Simon. He is thought to have preached in Egypt and then to have joined St. Jude in Persia. Some accounts say that Simon was martyred by being cut in half with a saw, and he is often depicted with one. But the fourth-century St. Basil the Great reported that Simon died peacefully in Edessa.