Originally Published 10/27/2011 - 7:11 a.m. CDT

The Feast of St. Simon and St. Jude the Martyrs falls on October 28.   The following is excerpted from THIS WEB SITE

“Simon was a simple Galilean, a brother of Jesus, as the ancients called one’s close relatives — aunts, uncles, first cousins.  He was one of Jesus' four first cousins, along with James the Less, Jude and Joseph (the Just), all sons of Mary, the wife of Alpheus, or Cleophas, either name being a derivative of the Aramaic Chalphai.

All the sons of this family were raised at Nazareth near the Holy Family. (See the Gospel of Saint Matthew 13:53-58) Simon, Jude and James were called by Our Lord to be Apostles, pillars of His Church, and Joseph the Just was His loyal disciple.

Saint Simon the Zealot or the Zealous, was the name this Apostle bore among the twelve. He preached in Egypt, Mauritania (Spain), and Libya, leaving behind him the fertile hills of Galilee, where he had been engaged in the healthful cultivation of the vineyards and olive gardens. He later rejoined his brother, Saint 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 who had terrorized the land. With the king, sixty thousand Persians became Christians, and churches rose over the ruins of the pagan temples.  But when the two went elsewhere the pagans commanded them to sacrifice to the sun.

Both Apostles, just before that time, had seen Our Lord amid His Angels. Simon said to Jude, “One of the Angels said to me, I will take you out of the temple and bring the building down upon their heads. I answered him, Let it not be so; perhaps some of them will be converted.” They prayed for mercy for the people and offered their lives to God.

Saint 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. ”

From Wikipedia we learn:

According to the Armenian tradition, Saint Jude suffered martyrdom about AD 65 in Beirut, Lebanon together with the apostle Simon the Zealot, with whom he is usually connected. Their acts and martyrdom were recorded in an Acts of Simon and Jude that was among the collection of passions and legends traditionally associated with the legendary Abdias, bishop of Babylon, and said to have been translated into Latin by his disciple Tropaeus Africanus, according to the Golden Legend account of the saints.[10][11] Saints Simon and Jude are venerated together in the Roman Catholic Church on October 28.

Sometime after his death, Saint Jude's body was brought from Beirut, Lebanon to Rome and placed in a crypt in St. Peter's Basilica which is visited by many devotees. According to popular tradition, the remains of St. Jude were preserved in a monastery on an island in the northern part of Issyk-Kul lake in Kyrgyzstan at least until mid-15th century. Later legend either denounce remains as being preserved there or moved to yet more desolate stronghold in the Pamir mountains. Recent discovery of the ruins of what could be that monastery may put an end to the dispute