Antiphons at Lauds - Psalms of Sunday of the 1st week

1. This is my commandment: that you love one another as I have loved you.

2. No one has any love greater than this: that one gives up his life for his friends.

3. You are my friends, if you do that which I command you.

Eph. 2, 19-22

Now therefore you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints, and of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone. In him all the building fitly framed together grows into a holy temple in the Lord: in him also you, through the Spirit, are built together in a habitation where God dwells.

Brethren, let a man so account of us, as of the ministers of Christ, and stewards of the mysteries of God. Moreover it is required in stewards, that a man be found faithful. But with me it is a very small thing that I should be judged of you, or of man’s judgment: indeed, I do not judge myself. For I know nothing by myself; yet am I not hereby justified: but he that judges me is the Lord. Therefore judge nothing before the time, until the Lord comes, who will both bring to light the hidden things of darkness and will make manifest the feelings of the hearts. And then shall every man have praise of God.

All these things, brethren, I have in a figure transferred to myself and to Apollos for your sakes; that you might learn in us not to think of men above that which is written, that no one of you be puffed up, one against another. For who makes you differ from another? And what have you that you did not receive? Now if you did receive it, why do you glory, as if you had not received it? Now you are full, now you are rich, you have reigned as kings without us: and I would to God you did reign, that we may also reign with you. For I think that God has placed us apostles last, as it were appointed to death: for we are made a spectacle to the world, to angels and to men. We are fools for Christ’s sake, but you are wise in Christ; we are weak, but you are strong; you are honourable, but we are despised. Even to this very hour we both hunger, and thirst, and sparsely clothed, stricken and slapped, and have no certain dwelling place; and we labour, working with our own hands: being reviled, we bless; being persecuted, we suffer it: being defamed, we implore with kindness. We are made as the filth of the world, and are the refuse of all persons to this day.

I write not these things to shame you, but as my beloved sons I warn you. For though you have ten thousand instructors in Christ, yet have you not many fathers: for in Christ Jesus I have begotten you through the Gospel. Wherefore I beseech you: Be you followers of me!

St Simon, whom St Matthew calls the Cananean to distingnish him from St Peter who bore the same name, was born at Cana in Galilee. St Luke calls him ‘the Zealot’ because he had probably belonged to the Jewish party, thus called for its zeal in defending the faith.

St Jude, surnamed Thaddeus or Lebbe, ‘the courageous’, was by Cleophas his father and Mary his mother, a nephew to St Joseph and the Blessed Virgin and cousin to Jesus. St James the Less, first bishop of Jerusalem and the first apostle martyred, and Simeon who succeeded him in this See, were his brothers.

St Jude wrote his catholic epistle which is still read in the West and which Origen declares "contains strong doctrine in a few lines." In the first part he foretells the condemnation of heretics: he compares them to clouds without water, to autumn trees without fruit and to wandering stars for whom profound darkness is apportioned for all eternity. Like the rebel angels, they shall burn for ever in avenging flames. In the second part he exhorts the faithful not to be deceived by the seducers but to remain firm in their faith in God and Christ.

"My well-beloved," Jude says, "rising like an edifice on the foundation of your holy faith and praying by the Holy Ghost, keep yourselves in the love of God." The archangel St Michael, St Jude again declares, was established by the Most High as guardian of the tomb of Moses. Having on this occasion to fight with Satan, probably to hinder him taking possession of the prophet’s body, out of respect for his angelical dignity, he left the condemnation to God saying, "May the Lord rebuke him."

When the Master was asked at the Last Supper by either Simon or Jude – the gospels are not clear - why He manifested himself to the apostles and not to the world, Jesus answered that he only manifested Himself to souls who show Him their fidelity by keeping His commandments.

These apostles of Christ heard from the lips of the Master at the Last Supper the gospel words: "I am the vine, you are the branches. Every branch which bears fruit, My Father shall prune in order that it should bear more. After having preached the Gospel at the price of great sufferings, Simon in Egypt, Jude in Mesopotatnia, they were both martyred in Persia on the 28^th October of the year 80, wherefore their feasts are celebrated on the same day.