Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles

If ever you visit the Abbey church at Portsmouth Priory in Rhode Island, be sure to look at the Latin inscription on the main door of the church, a passage from Saint Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, which is the second reading every time we celebrate the feast of an Apostle. Paul is addressing his words to us, and they are a perfect call to discipleship in the Body of Christ as a temple dedicated to the worship and love of the Lord. They are on the church’s door to connect that physical structure of the church and the physical structure of our being.

Hearing Saint Paul’s words, we rededicate ourselves to our Christian vocation to make ourselves and the whole world into the temple of God. I was born on the Feast of Simon and Jude 79 years ago today. When I was a child, the pastor of our parish set up a side altar to honor Saint Jude, the saint of impossible or hopeless cases, after being diagnosed with leukemia. Father Kelly decided to fight the grim diagnosis with prayer offered to Jude, saint of hopeless cases. Tradition says that Jude cured an ailing king with a miraculous image of our Lord, and depictions of Jude often show him holding a medallion imprinted with the face of Christ.

We know that “apostle” means “sent” in Greek. Born on the feast of two apostles, I have always felt a special obligation to, as Saint James puts it in the reading for Morning Prayer, “Be doers of the Word, not hearers only” (James 1:22). By our Baptism, we are called to missionary discipleship, especially in our relationships with others.

Prayer:

As we venerate the perpetual glory of the holy Apostles Simon and Jude, O Lord, we ask that you receive our prayers and lead us to worthy celebration of the sacred mysteries. Through Christ Our Lord. (Prayer Over the Offerings today)