St. Simon the Zealot

Today we remember St. Jude Thaddaeus, who is known for being the saint of the impossible. But St. Simon was an even more lost cause -- a Zealot. Either he was the kind of Zealot determined to prove he was more pious than thou, or he was the sort of Zealot freedom-fighter that isn't realllll far off from terrorism. (Their Latin name was Sicarius, daggerman, because the assassins among them would carry daggers under their clothes, slip up to their victim, and stab him the midst of a crowd, then slip away again.) Yep, it wasn't glamorous Judas who was into all that. He was mainstream. Simon was the moonbat. (And him and Matthew together in the same band... ouch.)

If Simon's the same guy who was second bishop of Jerusalem, then he was also one of Our Lord's cousins. And he lived long enough to have to flee Jerusalem for Pella on the strength of Jesus' prophecy, and then watch as Jerusalem was slowly starved into submission -- a time of horror you can read in Josephus. It wasn't a happy thing for a former moonbat like Simon to have to watch. If Jesus hadn't called him, he would have died with them.