Artist: Unknown
The small Simon, a little boy from Trent, was slayed on the 21st March, 1475 A.D., on Maundy-Thursday during Holy Week. The Jews of this town wanted to celebrate their Passover in their own way; so they secretly abducted the small boy and carried him to the house of the Jew Samuel.
During Holy Week on Maundy-Thursday, the day before Good Friday, "and" on the day before the outlawed "Perfidious Passover", about three hours after supper, the little boy, like children do, was sitting in front of his parents’ house.
Neither his father nor mother were home at the time as they were at Church. It was at this time that the Jew Tobias approached the child, who was not quite 30 months old, and while speaking kindly and offering the boy a piece of money, picked him up and carried him at once to the house of the Jew Samuel.
The saint was officially canonized by the Church in 1475 by Pope Sixtus IV. The veneration was reinvigorated in 1588 by the Franciscan Pope Sixtus V. His entry in the old Roman Martyrology for March 24 read: "At Trent, the martyrdom of the boy St. Simeon, who was barbarously murdered by the Jews, but who was afterwards glorified by many miracles."
Simon was eventually considered a martyr and a patron of kidnap and torture victims.
