Simone: Name Day and Patron Saint

St Simon was a native of Cana in Galilee, near Nazareth, and was known to the Lord and to His Mother. Church tradition holds that he was the bridegroom at the wedding in Cana, where Christ, His Mother and the disciples were guests and where the Lord turned the water into wine, His first miracle. Struck by what he had seen, Simon believed, and he left the wedding feast and his own house to follow Christ with such zeal that he is called the Zealot. He was numbered among the Twelve Apostles, and at Pentecost he received the Holy Spirit with the others. Then he went out to preach Christ in many lands. The traditions name Egypt, Libya and North Africa, Abkhazia on the eastern shore of the Black Sea, and even Britain, where early writers say he brought many unbelievers to the light of the Gospel. After winning many pagans to the Lord he suffered martyrdom by crucifixion, imitating his Master in his death. The traditions differ on where he died and was buried; one places his grave at Nikopsia near the Black Sea, where a church was later raised in his memory. The Church keeps his feast on 10 May (23 May on the Old Calendar), and he is remembered again with all the Apostles on 30 June. His hymns ask him to entreat Christ God for great mercy on our souls, and the faithful honour him as one who left everything, even his own wedding feast, for love of Christ.

What the faithful pray for

• great mercy for our souls
• zeal to follow Christ before all else
• courage to leave behind what keeps us from God
• those who carry the Gospel to distant lands