The Feast of St Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist – September 21
Life and Conversion of the Apostle
St Matthew, also called Levi, was the son of Alpheus, a Jew living in Galilee, and worked as a publican at Capharnaum. Tax collectors were despised by their countrymen as agents of the occupying Roman power and as men who often grew wealthy by dishonesty. It was precisely from this disreputable occupation that Christ called him, manifesting the power of grace to reach even the most unlikely of souls.
The Gospel narrates simply: “And when Jesus passed from thence, He saw a man sitting in the custom house, named Matthew; and He saith to him: Follow Me. And he rose up, and followed Him” (Matt. 9:9). Dom Prosper Guéranger remarks: “At one glance, at one word, Matthew understood; he left all and followed Christ. In an instant the publican became an apostle”¹. The call is sovereign and the response immediate: Matthew does not pause to calculate, but rises and obeys.
Fr Leonard Goffine draws attention to the example of promptness: “See how immediately Matthew obeyed, without hesitation, without delay, without regret. So must we answer the voice of God when He calls us by conscience or by vocation”². The instant readiness of Matthew challenges every Christian not to delay conversion, nor to cling to worldly securities when grace summons.
Author of the Gospel
According to ancient testimony, Matthew first preached to the Jews and, for their sake, composed his Gospel in their own tongue—Hebrew or Aramaic. St Irenaeus affirms: *“Matthew also issued a written Gospel among the Hebrews in their own dialect, while Peter and Paul were preaching at Rome and laying the foundations of the Church”*³. This Gospel emphasises Christ as the fulfilment of the Law and the Prophets. It opens with the genealogy of Our Lord, presents Him as the true Son of David, and includes the great discourses of the Sermon on the Mount and the parables of the Kingdom.
St Jerome notes that the Hebrew text was still extant in his own day, preserved at Caesarea and among the Nazarenes⁴. Although the original Semitic text has not survived, the canonical Greek version conveys Matthew’s intention: to prove to his Jewish brethren that Jesus is the Messiah foretold in Scripture.
Missionary Work and Martyrdom
After the Resurrection, Matthew continued to preach first in Judea, and later, according to tradition, in distant lands. Writers such as Eusebius record missions as far as Ethiopia and Parthia⁵. The details of his death are uncertain; some accounts place it in Ethiopia, others in Persia. Yet tradition consistently honours him as a martyr. Butler summarises: “He laboured many years in Judea, and afterwards carried the Gospel into the East. He is honoured as having died for the faith, though the circumstances are uncertain”⁶. His relics were translated to Salerno in the 10th century and enshrined there with great solemnity by Pope St Gregory VII in 1080.
The Liturgy of the Feast
The Collect of the day prays: “O God, Who didst vouchsafe to choose blessed Matthew, the publican, to the dignity of an apostle, grant, we beseech Thee, that we who rejoice in his feast may be aided by his prayers.” Guéranger observes that the Church deliberately calls him “the publican,” to magnify the mercy of God, who transformed shame into glory: “Thus does the Church point to herself as the company of the converted, gathered not from the just but from sinners”⁷.
The Epistle (Ezekiel 1:10–14) presents the vision of the four living creatures, interpreted since Irenaeus and Jerome as symbols of the Evangelists. The man, or angel, is Matthew, for he begins with Christ’s human genealogy and shows forth His Incarnation. The Gospel (Matt. 9:9–13) recounts Matthew’s own calling, teaching the faithful that the invitation to conversion is personal, sudden, and divine. Christ’s words, “I am not come to call the just, but sinners,” resonate through Matthew’s story as a charter for the entire Church.
Spiritual Lessons from St Matthew
Fr Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen comments that Matthew’s greatness lies in his docility: “The promptness of Matthew’s response to Jesus’ call shows his interior detachment. This is the fruit of grace: docility which makes the soul attentive and ready for God’s every request”⁸. This same availability is demanded of every Christian: to leave behind not necessarily riches, but the attachments that bind the soul to self-will.
The Gospel he gave to the Church, with its account of the Beatitudes, becomes his own portrait. As Guéranger remarks: “The Church, having received from Matthew the inspired account of the Beatitudes, now honours him as one who lived them first, then taught them, and finally sealed them with his blood”⁹.
Devotion to St Matthew
Christian devotion honours St Matthew as Apostle and Evangelist, patron of bankers, accountants, and all engaged in financial matters. The winged man or angel is his emblem in Christian art, symbolising the humanity of Christ and the inspiration of the Holy Spirit in his writings. His cultus flourished in Salerno, where pilgrims venerated his relics, and continues throughout the Church.
For the faithful, his example is a summons to respond generously to grace, to detach from worldly interests, and to embrace the Gospel without hesitation. As Goffine reminds us, “even the most despised condition in the eyes of men is no obstacle to grace, if only we are willing to follow when Christ calls”¹⁰.
Footnotes
¹ Dom Prosper Guéranger, The Liturgical Year, vol. 14: September (Dublin: James Duffy, 1910), pp. 191–192.
² Leonard Goffine, Explanation of the Epistles and Gospels for the Sundays, Holidays and Festivals Throughout the Ecclesiastical Year (New York: Benziger, 1880), p. 872.
³ St Irenaeus, Against Heresies, III.1.1.
⁴ St Jerome, De viris illustribus, ch. 3.
⁵ Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History, III.24.6.
⁶ Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints, September 21, St Matthew.
⁷ Guéranger, Liturgical Year, vol. 14, p. 192.
⁸ Fr Gabriel of St Mary Magdalen, Divine Intimacy, vol. 3 (Rockford, IL: TAN, 1996), meditation for September 21.
⁹ Guéranger, Liturgical Year, vol. 14, p. 194.
¹⁰ Goffine, Explanation of the Epistles and Gospels, p. 873.
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