Today we celebrate the feast of St. Simon and St. Jude Thaddeus.  Simon the Canaanite and Judas Thaddaeus are celebrated together not only because they always appear together in the lists of the Twelve Apostles, but also because there are not many mentions about them. 

Simon was nicknamed the Zealot. He belonged to this sect or to the Canaanites because he originated from Cana. Tradition narrates that he preached in Egypt and was martyred in the city of Suanis in Persia, where he died together with St. Jude Thaddaeus. We know that he was buried there thanks to St. Fortunatus, Bishop of Poitiers in the sixth century. Between the seventh and eighth centuries, a church dedicated to Simon already existed in Nicopsis, on the coast of the Dead Sea. He is depicted with a saw, as tradition recounts that his body was sawed in half by the worshippers of the sun in Persia. Zealot is the patron saint of sawyers and dyers, since, according to tradition, he was a dyer.

Judas Thaddaeus was the brother of James the Less and a cousin of Jesus. Jude Thaddaeus has been attributed the paternity of one of the New Testament letters that are usually called "catholic" because they are not addressed to a specific local Church but to a much wider circle of recipients. This letter is addressed like this: "to those who have been called, beloved of God the Father and reserved for Jesus Christ.” In it, St. Jude presents himself as a servant of Jesus Christ and brother of James. According to the Roman Martyrology, St. Jude Thaddeus, after leaving Judea, preached in Mesopotamia and then in Persia, where he suffered martyrdom together with the Apostle Simon, as we have already mentioned. St. Jude Thaddeus is usually depicted with an image of Christ on his chest, symbolizing his kinship with the Lord. His depictions also include a mallet, the instrument with which he was executed with an impact to the head before it was chopped off with an axe. He is considered the patron saint of desperate cases and lost causes. Indeed, St. Bridget of Sweden recounts in her Revelations that the Lord Jesus urged her to ask favors and graces from him through St. Jude Thaddeus. Perhaps this is the main reason why devotion to this saint has become so deeply rooted in popular Christian piety.

Our Lord Jesus Christ chose and instituted those who were to be guides and teachers of the entire world and stewards of His divine mysteries. He also commanded them to be like stars that would shine their light not only on the country of the Jews but also on all countries, over all the men who inhabit the whole earth. Following the example of the Apostles, let us too, by the grace of God the Father, become stars for all of those who surround us or who cross our path, and in humility, let us serve God and our brothers and sisters by illuminating hearts with the light of the Good News.

To celebrate the feast of these two apostles, we at Neumz have chosen the communion chant Ego vos elegi. The text is taken from the Gospel of John 15:16 and is an exhortation, an incitement to live driven by a holy restlessness: the restlessness to bring to all the gift of faith, of friendship with Christ, imitating the work of the Apostles. Ego vos elegi de mundo, ut eatis et fructum afferatis: et fructus vester maneat, “It was not you who chose me, but I who chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit that will remain” (John 15:16). Truly, the love, the friendship of God has been given to us, so that it may also reach others. We have received the faith to pass it on to others. We must clothe ourselves with mutual love. We must esteem these things by putting them into practice with a pure heart, a luminous conscience, and genuine faith. We must do for one another, with a most sincere desire and an earnest spirit, all that the Lord Jesus has done for us: Love one another unconditionally and make all known to the Eternal Father. And we must bear fruit that will last. All men wish to leave a mark that will remain. But what remains? Not all of the material. The only thing that remains eternally is the human soul, the man created by God for eternity. Therefore, the fruit that remains is everything we have sown in the human souls: love, the gesture capable of touching the heart; the word that opens the soul to the joy of the Lord. Thus, let us go and ask the Lord to help us to bear fruit, a fruit that remains. Only in this way will the earth be transformed from a valley of tears into a garden of God.

As for the melody, it is composed in mode I, a mode of splendid majesty that is not pompous, with seriousness and grand announcements. Therefore, an important affirmation, the one made in this piece by our Lord Jesus Christ, who speaks in the first person: I have chosen you. The melodic movement starts on the dominant, the La. From there, it rises to the Do and then bows on the La and settles on the Sol to close the word ego, I. The Lord places himself melodically on the La and from this "higher plane" he lifts us throughout the piece, coming to reach "the celestial heights" of Do. This is what happens in the following incise, for in vos, to you, the high Do resounds for the second and last time in the piece. The Lord exalts this you, a pronoun referring to the Apostles: majestically, the quilismatic movement leads the melody from the La to the Do and this semitonal interval of Si-Do confers on this vos the tenderness and proximity of the Lord to his closest disciples. In elegi de mundo, I have chosen from the world, the melodic movement reaches for the first time the Fa. The clivis with episema La-Fa of the pretonic syllable of elegi sings this bowing of the Lord to choose his chosen ones and to establish them on the dominant, the La like it is solemnly sung in the accent of the word thanks to the pes quadratus Sol-La. It is a gesture of grandeur, the prayerful person makes this verb, elegi, shine with due splendor, and the rhythm is widened here. De mundo is a circumstantial complement added to the text, as it does not appear in the original passage: ego elegi vos et posui vos... As can be seen. The composer has proceeded to a textual condensation and to an addition: at the textual level, the emphasis is placed on the fact that the Apostles are people like us, of this world. The pes quadratus of the preposition de with an interval of a third, Mi-Sol, symbolizes this choice, elevation, and distinction. On the other hand, the Fa colors the accent of the word: in comparison to the La, Christ, and the Do, the celestial heights, here we find the Fa, which represents the earthly plane. Note the neumatic cut at the beginning of the word, which confers even more strength to this Fa. The incise and the word close on the Re, the fundamental of the mode, which appears for the first time. The Re degree in this piece implies descending further into the being, which means deepening into the hearts of those who dwell here below. Jesus touched the hearts of his disciples. This symbolic strength is confirmed in the following incise, ut eatis, that you may go. The melody rises agilely from the Fa to the La passing through the Sol with a beautiful neumatic cut in the accent of the word eatis. This ascending movement, rising towards the La, prefigures the mission of the Apostles: to elevate the souls. The word and the incise close again on the Re, the fundamental, this time with a leap of a fourth, Sol-Re, the degree that symbolizes that luminous touch in the hearts, from the heights to the depths of the being: in effect, the Apostles raise souls by going to the depths of the soul and touching hearts with the proclamation of the Good News.

In the following incise, in et fructum, and the fruit, the melodic movement oscillates between the Re and the Fa. It is a fruit that must be sown and germinate, here, on the terrestrial plane, and penetrate deeply: that is why the Lord has chosen his Apostles (and us). In afferatis, take, the sowing of this fruit is completed, it resounds once again, and the prayerful one sings with immense devotion that elevation of the hearts from the fruit that the Apostles and all Christians bring to this world. Observe the parallelism between elegi and afferatis: the clivis with episema La-Fa, that inclination of Christ in the election of his Apostles, now becomes a pes quadratus Fa-La, that elevation which is the fruit of the apostolic preaching. In the accent of both words, the pes Sol-La remains. Afferatis closes with a cadential torculus, Fa-Sol-Fa, which places the melody on the Fa, bearing the fruit of the Good News extends and spreads in this degree, the Fa, the range of the earthly realm.

After these two exhortations from the Master to his disciples, "go," and "bear the fruit," is masterfully announced, in this case, to be said, the third: and may this fruit, "yours," remain, et fructus vester maneat. So this fruit may remain in the hearts of those who listen to the preaching, those words must spring from converted hearts, ones close to God, who live in the faith of the Father and cultivate his Love. Et fructus, the melody returns to the high range, and the La resounds with strength amplified by the closeness and tenderness conferred by the B-flat, the only time it appears in the whole piece. From B-flat, the melody descends with determination to Fa, a leap of a fourth, and then to the Re: this marked melodic descent denotes, once again, this "descent" from the celestial heights of the Word to the earth and the hearts of men. In this sense, note in vester, yours, the descent from the Fa to the Do, the ornament of Re: even though you are of this world, you too can penetrate and penetrate deeply into the hearts of your brethren. In maneat, may it remain, the piece ends with a beautiful cadential formula that unites the Re to the Fa, prolonging the permanency of the Word of God announced on earth to mankind.