Word to the Wise
Monday, October 28, 2024 - Oct. 28 - Sts. Simon and Jude, Apostles
[Eph 2:19-22 and Luke 6:12-19]You are no longer strangers and sojourners, but you are fellow citizens with the holy ones and members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the Apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the capstone. Through him the whole structure is held together and grows into a temple sacred in the Lord; in him you also are being built together into a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. [Ephesians]
During the recent devastation caused by hurricanes Helene and Milton, there were frequent film clips of entire houses collapsing into rushing water. Some of the homes had been in place a long time. But the huge amount of rainfall caused flooding of an epic scope and what seemed like secure foundations to the owners gave way to the immense pressure. The losses were more than material. People suffered the loss of a home and safety and security and had no place to go except a temporary shelter. They became almost "strangers and sojourners" in their own regions. Foundations that can survive weather catastrophes like hurricanes or earthquakes are hard to build. When the word "foundation" is used analogically, as it is in Ephesians, we may wonder what kind of foundation is meant? What can it survive?
The initial choices of Jesus for the role of apostle seem to have been a "mixed bag!" They were fishermen, tax collectors, a skeptic, a terrorist, etc. One of them betrayed him to the religious authorities who tried to make him out to the Roman authorities as a dangerous revolutionary. They all ran away when Jesus was arrested! Yet, after the Pentecost event, they became the first (after Mary Magdalene!) preachers of the gospel and became the "foundation" laid by the founder! Some of them would become better known and some somewhat disappeared in the mists of history. Simon was a political activist and Jude (Thaddeus) later on became a patron of hopeless cases. This made Jude an effective fundraiser because a Dominican shrine of St. Jude in Chicago paid for my Dominican formation!!! There are a lot of hopeless cases!
In celebrating the feast of Sts. Simon and Jude we can celebrate all the lesser known preachers whose lives continued to build the faith that we have now. We profess faith in an "apostolic church" every Sunday. We owe it to their Spirit-filled efforts! AMEN