Today the Catholic Church celebrates the feast day of Saints Simon and Jude, two of the apostles about whom we hear very little. Nonetheless, I feel some special connection to them because my childhood parish and grade school in Brooklyn, New York, was Sts. Simon and Jude. I can’t remember receiving any special teaching about these saints in school. All I could ever glean about them was what I learned from the words of our school song. What I remember of the song goes like this:
Saints Simon and Jude,
chosen friends of the Lord,
Whose spirit and zeal
[did something].
Christ’s valiant apostles,
we greet you with love,
Oh bring us to Jesus,
[some other line I don’t remember].
So all I know about Simon and Jude is (1) they were chosen by Jesus; (2) they had zeal for the task to which they were appointed; (3) they were valiant, a word we don’t tend to use, so I replace it with courage and determination. The first is true of all of us: we are all called by Christ. The second and third seem to me to be admirable characteristics in any disciple. And so my prayer this day to Saints Simon and Jude is that I be filled with their zeal and their courage and determination.
[Update: I graduated from Sts. Simon and Jude grade school in 1971. One of my sources of joy is that there is a group of those in my graduating class who still keep in touch, albeit more frequently via e-mail than in person. I am corrected by one of my SSJ buddies that the song was not an official school song, but rather one that Sister Joseph Edward taught us so we could sing on the feast day of Saints Simon and Jude. More importantly, someone else remembered the words more accurately and fully than I did:
Saints Simon and Jude,
chosen friends of the Lord,
Whose spirit and zeal
Sought his undying Word.
Christ’s valiant apostles,
we greet you with love,
O teach us the way,
To the kingdom above.]
We’re still working on remembering the second verse, but so far only have the first half of it:
You offered your lives
that we might be free
From Satan’s dark wiles
and from his tyranny….
Creo en Dios! 