September 21, 2026
Feast of Saint Matthew, Apostle and evangelist
Lectionary: 643
Reading 1
Brothers and sisters:
I, a prisoner for the Lord,
urge you to live in a manner worthy of the call you have received,
with all humility and gentleness, with patience,
bearing with one another through love,
striving to preserve the unity of the Spirit
through the bond of peace:
one Body and one Spirit,
as you were also called to the one hope of your call;
one Lord, one faith, one baptism;
one God and Father of all,
who is over all and through all and in all.
But grace was given to each of us
according to the measure of Christ's gift.
And he gave some as Apostles, others as prophets,
others as evangelists, others as pastors and teachers,
to equip the holy ones for the work of ministry,
for building up the Body of Christ,
until we all attain to the unity of faith
and knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood,
to the extent of the full stature of Christ.
Responsorial Psalm
R. (5) Their message goes out through all the earth.
The heavens declare the glory of God;
and the firmament proclaims his handiwork.
Day pours out the word to day,
and night to night imparts knowledge.
R. Their message goes out through all the earth.
Not a word nor a discourse
whose voice is not heard;
Through all the earth their voice resounds,
and to the ends of the world, their message.
R. Their message goes out through all the earth.
Alleluia
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
We praise you, O God,
we acclaim you as Lord;
the glorious company of Apostles praise you.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel
As Jesus passed by,
he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post.
He said to him, "Follow me."
And he got up and followed him.
While he was at table in his house,
many tax collectors and sinners came
and sat with Jesus and his disciples.
The Pharisees saw this and said to his disciples,
"Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"
He heard this and said,
"Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do.
Go and learn the meaning of the words,
I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
I did not come to call the righteous but sinners."
https://bible.usccb.org/bible/readings/092126.cfm
Commentary on Ephesians
4:1-7,11-13; Matthew 9:9-13
The Gospel reading tells Matthew’s version of Jesus calling
a tax-collector to be a disciple. Tax collectors have a very poor reputation in
the Gospel. They are numbered among the groups of outcasts with whom no decent
person would have any contact. In Palestine, most of them would have been Jews,
employed by the Roman colonial power to collect taxes from their own people.
Roman citizens did not have to pay taxes; only the conquered peoples had to do
this.
So tax collectors were seen both as renegades and traitors,
and also as people who were in gross violation of their Jewish faith in working
for Gentiles in this way. Even Jesus, when speaking of members of the Christian
community who refuse to change their sinful ways in spite of every effort made
to help them reform, said:
…let such a one be to you as a gentile and a tax
collector. (Matt 18:17)
The Jewish tax collector was put on the same level as a
Gentile, a person with whom no self-respecting Jew would have any relationship.
And here, in today’s reading, we see Jesus inviting such a
person to be his disciple! This tells us a number of things about Jesus. It
means that he does not look at stereotypes. He does not say, “He is a tax
collector, so he must be a very sinful person with whom I should have no
contact.” No, he looks at the person and sees the potential there. And in
Matthew he sees the potential for him to be one of his followers, and indeed
one of his Apostles, on whom the continuation of Jesus’ mission will depend.
For Jesus, our past is not very important. What counts is where we are now and
where we can be in the future.
After Jesus says to Matthew, “Follow me”, the tax collector
gets up and goes after Jesus, leaving all the paraphernalia of his occupation behind
him. It is very similar to Peter, Andrew, James and John leaving their boats,
their nets and even their family to go with Jesus. It is an unconditional and
total following.
Matthew then decides to celebrate his new calling. He
invites Jesus and his disciples and also the only friends he has—other sinners
and tax collectors. They all sit down together in ‘his’ house. Whose house? It
could be the house where Jesus is staying, a house mentioned a number of times
in the Gospels and which is a symbol of the Christian community, the place
where Jesus gathers with his disciples.
Here, tax collectors and sinners are invited into the house
to eat together with Jesus and his followers. This does not indicate that Jesus
does not care about their behaviour, but rather that they are being brought
under his influence; they are the ‘lost sheep’ being brought back to the
Shepherd.
Or it could refer to Matthew’s house. In that case, we see
Jesus and his disciples unhesitatingly going into the house of a sinner and
accepting his hospitality. Of course, the Pharisees are scandalized:
Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and
sinners?
As devout followers of the Law, they would never have contact
with such people. How can Jesus as a rabbi behave like this?
Jesus answers them very bluntly:
Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those
who are sick.
Matthew and his friends are people in need of healing. Jesus
is there to give it to them. And Jesus quotes from the prophet Hosea:
For I desire mercy, not sacrifice. (Hosea 6:6)
Jesus and his true followers are measured by their
compassion and care of those in real need. They are not measured by their
observation of ritual laws.
In fact, says Jesus, he has come with a special interest in
the sinner. Genuinely good people do not really need the services of Jesus.
They are the sheep who stay with the flock and close to the Shepherd. Jesus is
interested in the stray sheep. This reading has many lessons for us living our
Christian life today.
The First Reading from the Letter to the Ephesians is a
prayer for unity in a Church where there are many different responsibilities.
The Church is the Body of the Risen Christ and, like any body, is a unified
organism in which each of its parts has a role to play in contributing to the
whole. The source of this unity is that:
…there is one body and one Spirit…one Lord, one faith,
one baptism, one God and Father of all…
But unity is not uniformity. Unity is when different
elements merge together in perfect harmony. So Paul goes on to say that there
are different callings and responsibilities in the community. And he mentions a
few of them—apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers. But there
are many others. The purpose of these ministries is to equip the members of the
community for the work of service and for building up the Body of Christ. It is
a beautiful picture of a Christian community—all deeply united in faith and
love, and yet each one serving the community with a different responsibility.
We remember Matthew, of course, as an Apostle and also an
Evangelist. It was through these charisms that he contributed to the building
up of the Church as the Body of the Risen Christ.
Let each one of us recognise the charism in us by which we
can serve and build up the Christian community. Let us work together for
greater unity while celebrating our diversity so that God’s Word can find
fertile root in as many of God’s children as possible.
https://sacredspace.com/commentary
Monday,
September 21, 2026
Feast of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist
Opening Prayer
Father,
You call Your children to walk in the light of Christ.
Free us from darkness and keep us in the radiance of Your
truth.
We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, Your Son, who lives
and reigns with You and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Gospel Reading - Matthew 9: 9-13
As Jesus passed by, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the
customs post.
He said to him, "Follow me." And he got up and
followed him. While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and
sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples. The Pharisees saw this and
said to his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and
sinners?" He heard this and said, "Those who are well do not need a
physician, but the sick do. Go and learn the meaning of the words, I desire
mercy, not sacrifice. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners."
Reflection
The Sermon on the Mountain takes
chapters 5, 6 and 7 of the Gospel of Matthew. The purpose of the narrative part
of chapters 8 and 9 is to show how Jesus put into practice what He had just
taught. In the Sermon on the Mountain, He teaches acceptance (Mt 5: 23-25,
38-42, 43). Now He puts it into practice accepting the lepers (Mt 8: 1-4), the
foreigners (Mt 8: 5-13), the women (Mt 8: 1415), the sick (Mt 8: 16-17), the
possessed (Mt 8: 28-34), the paralytics (Mt 9: 1-8), the tax collectors (Mt 9:
9-13), the unclean persons (Mt 9: 20-22), etc. Jesus breaks the norms and the
customs which excluded and divided persons, that is with the fear and the lack
of faith (Mt 8: 23-27) the laws on purity (9: 14-17), and He clearly says which
are the requirements for those who want to follow Him. They should have the
courage to abandon many things (Mt 8: 18-22). In the same way in the attitudes
and in the practice of Jesus we see in what the Kingdom and the perfect
observance of the Law of God consists.
•
Matthew 9: 9: The call to follow Jesus. The
first people called to follow Jesus are four fishermen, all Jewish (Mt 4:
18-22). Now Jesus calls a tax collector, considered a sinner and treated as an
unclean person by the community of the most observant of the Pharisees. In the
other Gospels, this tax collector is called Levi. Here, his name is Matthew,
which means gift of God or given by God. The communities, instead of excluding
the tax collector and of considering him unclean, should consider him a Gift of
God for the community, because his presence makes the community become a sign
of salvation for all! Like the first four who were called, in the same way also
Matthew, the tax collector, leaves everything that he has and follows Jesus.
The following of Jesus requires breaking away from many things. Matthew leaves
the tax office, his source of revenue and follows Jesus!
•
Matthew 9: 10: Jesus sits at table with sinners
and tax collectors. At that time the Jews lived separated from the tax
collectors and sinners and they did not eat with them at the same table. The
Christian Jews should break away from this isolation and sit at table with the
tax collectors and with the unclean, according to the teaching given by Jesus
in the Sermon on the Mountain, the expression of the universal love of God the
Father (Mt 5: 44-48). The mission of the communities was that of offering a
place to those who did not have it. But this new law was not accepted by all.
In some communities, persons coming from paganism, even if they were
Christians, were not accepted around the same table (cf. Ac 10: 28; 11: 3; Ga
2: 12). The text of today’s Gospel shows us Jesus who sits at table with tax collectors
and sinners in the same house, around the same table.
•
Matthew 9: 11: The question of the Pharisees.
Jews were forbidden to sit at table with the tax collectors and with sinners,
but Jesus does not follow this prohibition. Rather He becomes a friend to them.
The Pharisees seeing the attitude of Jesus, ask the disciples: “Why does your
master eat with tax collectors and sinners?” This question may be interpreted
as an expression of their desire to know why Jesus acts in that way. Others
interpret the question like a criticism of Jesus’ behavior, because for over
five hundred years, from the time of the slavery in Babylon until the time of
Jesus, the Jews had observed the laws of purity. This secular observance became
a strong sign of identity. At the same time it was a factor of their separation
in the midst of other peoples. Thus, because of the laws on purity, they could
not nor did they succeed to sit around the same table to eat with tax
collectors. To eat with tax collectors meant to get contaminated, to become
unclean. The precepts of legal purity were rigorously observed, in Palestine as
well as in the Jewish communities of the Diaspora. At the time of Jesus, there
were more than five hundred precepts to keep purity. In the years 70’s, at the
time when Matthew wrote, this conflict was very actual.
•
Matthew 9: 12-13: “Mercy is what pleases me, not
sacrifice. Jesus hears the question of the Pharisees to the disciples and He
answers with two clarifications: the first one is taken from common sense: “It
is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick.” The second one is taken
from the Bible: “Go and learn the meaning of the words: Mercy is what pleases
Me, not sacrifice.” Through these clarifications, Jesus makes explicit and
clarifies His mission among the people: “I have not come to call the upright
but sinners.” Jesus denies the criticism of the Pharisees; He does not accept
their arguments, because they came from a false idea of the Law of God. He
Himself invokes the Bible: “Mercy is what pleases Me, not sacrifice.” For
Jesus, mercy is more important than legal purity. He refers to the prophetic
tradition to say that mercy has greater value for God than all sacrifices (Ho
6: 6; Is 1: 10-17). God has profound mercy and is moved before the failures of
His people (Ho 11: 8-
9).
Personal Questions
•
Today, in our society, who is marginalized and
excluded? Why? In our community, do we have preconceptions or prejudices?
Which? Which is the challenge which the words of Jesus present to our
community?
•
Jesus asks the people to read and to understand
the Old Testament which says: “Mercy is what pleases Me and not sacrifice.”
What does Jesus want to tell us with this today?
Concluding Prayer
Blessed are those who observe
His instructions, Blessed are those who observe His instructions, who seek Him
with all their hearts, and, doing no evil, who walk in His ways. (Ps 119: 2-3)
Saint Matthew, Apostle and
Evangelist
Matthew, who is called Levi by Mark and Luke, was a tax
collector, a Jew working for the Roman colonising power. It is not surprising
that Jews who did this work were objects of contempt (especially as the Romans
did not collect tax from their own citizens). As recorded in today’s Gospel
reading, Matthew left his business to become a disciple of Jesus, and indeed
one of the Twelve Apostles.
Matthew is spoken of five times in the New Testament; first
in Matthew (9:9), when called by Jesus to follow Him, and then four times in
the lists of the Apostles, where he is mentioned in the seventh (Luke 6:15 and
Mark 3:18), or eighth place (Matthew 10:3 and Acts 1:13). As the account in the
three Synoptics is identical, it is presumed that Matthew and Levi refer to the
same person, although this is disputed. Levi could have been his original
Jewish name. This is indicated by Matthew’s Gospel referring to the tax
collector as someone “named Matthew”. It was quite common for Jews to have two
names. He is not mentioned in John’s Gospel.
From very early times, Matthew has been traditionally
regarded as the author of one of the four Gospels, to which both Irenaeus and
Papias, early Christian writers, give witness. This Gospel was written late in
the 1st century and, based on similarity of material, is presumed to be
dependent on Mark which is believed to have been the first Gospel to be
written. It is a very Jewish work and is clearly directed to Jewish converts.
The original is thought to have been written in Aramaic or Hebrew although we
now only have the Greek version. Matthew’s Gospel (in contrast with Mark’s)
concentrates a good deal on the teaching of Jesus and for that reason was used
widely in the Church for catechetical teaching.
Each of the four evangelists is represented by a symbol
taken from the Old Testament. Matthew is represented as a man. This is because
the genealogy he places at the beginning of his Gospel speaks of the human
ancestry of Jesus.
One tradition says he went to Ethiopia and preached the
Gospel there, confirming his teaching with many miracles. Because of one of his
greatest miracles—that of bringing back to life the king’s daughter—the king
and his wife, together with the whole country became Christians. When the king
died, his successor Hirtacus wished to marry Iphigenia, the daughter of the
former king. But she had vowed her virginity to God and would not change.
Because the vow had been taken through Matthew’s influence, Hirtacus had
Matthew killed. It was believed that this happened on 21 September, hence the
date of his feast.
However, the Martyrology of Jerome says he died at
Tarrium in Persia, while other sources say it was at Tarsuana, east of the
Persian Gulf. What are claimed to be his relics were brought to Salerno in
Italy by Robert Guiscard from Finisterre in Brittany where it is said they had
been originally brought from Ethiopia. Later, under Pope Gregory VII, they were
transferred to the church dedicated to St Matthew.
In art, Matthew is represented as either an evangelist or an
Apostle. As an evangelist he sits at a desk, writing his Gospel with an angel
guiding his hand or holding an inkwell. As an Apostle he is shown with the
emblem of martyrdom—a spear or sword or lance. He may also be shown holding a
money-bag, representing his original profession. In the later Middle Ages he
may even be shown wearing glasses, to help read his accounts!
https://sacredspace.com/commentary/f0921s/
