It is God who works in you both to will and to accomplish. Phil. 2:13
Simon was a Galilean, first cousin of Jesus, son of Mary, the wife of Cleophas who was the brother of Saint Joseph, according to tradition. All the sons of this family were raised at Nazareth near the Holy Family (St Matthew 13:53-58). Simon, Jude and James were called by Our Lord to be Apostles. St Simon preached in Egypt, Mauritania (Spain), and Lybia, leaving behind him the fertile hills of Galilee, where he had been engaged in the cultivation of the vineyards and olive gardens. He later rejoined his brother, St Jude, in Persia, where they labored and died together. At first they were respected by the king, for they had manifested power over two ferocious tigers, as the legend says, who had terrorized the land. With the king, sixty thousand Persians became Christians, and churches rose over the temple ruins. But when the two went elsewhere, the pagans commanded them to sacrifice to the sun. St Simon told the crowd that their gods were only demons, and ordered them to come out of the statues, which they did, revealing themselves under hideous forms. But the idolaters fell on the Apostles and massacred them, while they blessed God and prayed for their murderers. Saint Jude has left us a short but powerful epistle, written after the death of his brother James, bishop of Jerusalem, and addressed to the new Christians being tempted by false brethren and heretics.
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