Today, the Church honors Saints Simon and Jude, Simon was called “the Zealot.”Simon is not Simon Peter, the Prince of the Apostles,

but rather “Simon the Cananean” and “Simon the Zealot”. As a zealot,

Simon would have been very committed to his Jewish identity and would have been firmly opposed to Roman oppression and taxation.

Jude is referred to as “Judas, not the Iscariot…”

Jude was the patron saint of hopeless cases. He was a brother of St. James the Lesser, and a relative of Jesus.

During the Last Supper, asked Jesus, “Master, what happened that you will reveal yourself to us and not to the world?”

Saint Jude the Apostle which he warns all Christians against immorality and heresy trying to enter the early Church.

They bore the sacred responsibility of transmitting the Sacraments and the teachings of Jesus to a nascent Church.

Simon is traditionally believed to have been sawed in half, Jude have been beaten with a club. 

 

＊＊＊ 1st Reading ＊＊＊  

Ephesians 2:19-22

Now, you are no longer strangers or guests,

But fellow citizens of the holy people: you are of the household of God. You are the house, whose foundations are the apostles and prophets, and whose cornerstone is Christ Jesus. In him, the whole structure is joined together, and rises, to be a holy temple, in the Lord. In him, you, too, are being built, to become the spiritual Sanctuary of God.

 

Ps 19:2-3, 4-5 Their message goes out through all the earth.

 

＊＊＊＊ Gospel ＊＊＊＊      

Luke 6:12-16

At this time, Jesus went out into the hills to pray, spending the whole night in prayer with God. When day came, he called his disciples to him, and chose Twelve of them, whom he called 'apostles': Simon, whom he named Peter, and his brother Andrew; James and John; Philip and Bartholomew; Matthew and Thomas; James son of Alpheus and Simon called the Zealot; Judas son of James, and Judas Iscariot, who would be the traitor.

 

Gospel Reflection ：

"Our household is incomplete unless all of its members are welcome." 

In his Letter to the Ephesians, Paul describes the Church as the household of God. We are all looking for a place to call home, a place where we belong and where we know that we are loved. But how do we welcome people into our churches so that they feel this sense of love and belonging?

If you talk to people who have left the Church, they often mention some incident or moment of hurt that made them feel as though they were no longer welcome. Perhaps someone took offense at the way they were dressed or at a small child's behavior or crying. After weeks of angry looks and muttered insults, they stopped coming.

 

Or perhaps a person feels as though his sins are too great or her life is too messy to be welcomed. Do our churches offer to accompany people in their times of struggle? Do we show that our churches are not a museum of the perfect but a hospital for sinners? Our household is incomplete unless all of its members are welcome.