Today, the Church honors Saints Simon and Jude, two of the Twelve Apostles chosen by our Lord. They were two of the first bishops through whom our Lord established His Church and from whom every bishop, priest, and deacon is a spiritual descendant.
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. Saint Jude is most famously recognized as the patron saint of hopeless causes, desperate situations, and impossible cases. When people feel entirely helpless, alone, or at a complete dead-end in life, they traditionally turn to St. Jude for comfort and intercession.
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. Saint Simon the Apostle is the patronsaint of saw workers, tanners, and woodworkers. His patronage is linked to traditional accounts of his martyrdom, which state that he was sawed in half for his faith.
