Feast of Saints Simon and Jude, Apostles
Luke 6:12-19
Chosen to be his friends and witnesses

Today’s Gospel takes us to a decisive moment: Jesus spends the whole night in prayer to the Father, and then chooses twelve from among his disciples to be apostles. This choice is not a random selection. It is born of prayer, born of the Father’s will, and it shows us what discipleship really means.

First, Jesus calls them “to be with him.” Before being sent, they are invited to stay close. The first mission of every apostle—and of every Christian—is friendship with Jesus. He does not want servants who obey blindly, but friends who walk with him, share his joys, and even carry his Cross. Imagine: the Son of God desiring our friendship! This is the heart of our faith—that God wants us close and wants to stay close to us.

Second, he calls them to learn. To be a disciple is to be a lifelong learner. Saints Simon and Jude did not understand everything from the start, nor do we. They walked, stumbled, asked questions, argued, and slowly grew. That is our path too: to allow Jesus to teach us, day by day, how to love and forgive, how to serve and to hope.

Third, he calls them to be apostles—to be sent. An apostle is an ambassador, a living message of Christ. Not just through words, but through life itself. We are “samples” of Jesus, meant to show his face to the world.

Notice also who these apostles were: very ordinary men, without wealth or status, with different and even opposing backgrounds. Matthew the tax collector and Simon the Zealot should have been enemies, yet in Jesus they became brothers. This is a miracle of the Gospel: in him, opposites are reconciled.

On this feast of Simon and Jude, let us remember that we too are called—first to be with Jesus, then to learn from him, and finally to be sent out as his ambassadors. Ordinary as we are, Jesus trusts us to bear his love to the world. If we stay close to him, like the apostles, our lives too can become living pages of the Gospel.

© Claretian Publications, Hong Kong, China
Cum Approbatione Ecclesiastica 2025