Ephesians 2.19-22; Psalm 18; Luke 6.12-19
Jesus sent out his disciples “two by two” [Luke 10.1] and the Church honours two such pairs (James the Less and Philip, and Simon and Jude) with joint feasts. We know little about Simon, who is only mentioned in the lists of the Twelve and not otherwise in the Gospels, but St Luke notes that he was “called the Zealot”, suggesting that he had been involved in the guerrilla movement set on extirpating the Roman colonial presence from the holy land of Israel. Tradition has it that he was martyred with Jude in Persia.
Jude (called “Thaddeus” in Matthew 10.3) gets a brief speaking part in John’s Gospel [14.22] when he asks Jesus a question at the Last Supper. Apart from that intervention we know little about him. He is traditionally regarded as the author of the Epistle of St Jude in the New Testament.