Feast of Saint Matthew, Apostle and evangelist

What is Daily Mass Readings with Homily and Saint of the Day?

Hear the Mass readings of the day, followed by a homily grounded in the writings of the Church Fathers, Doctors, and master theologians. Every episode concludes with a brief reflection on the heroic virtue of the Saint of the Day and a practical spiritual resolution to carry into your daily life.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Today is September the twenty-first, the Feast of Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist. Grant us, O Lord, the grace to hear Your call as Matthew heard it—sudden, sovereign, and irresistible—that, rising from whatever customs post of sin or self-sufficiency we occupy, we may follow You without hesitation and proclaim Your mercy to the ends of the earth.

A reading from the Letter of Saint Paul to the Ephesians.

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.

The Word of the Lord.

The Lord be with you.

Responsorial Psalm, from Psalm nineteen.

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.

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.

Their message goes out through all the earth.

Alleluia, alleluia. We praise you, O God, we acclaim you as Lord; the glorious company of Apostles praise you. Alleluia, alleluia.

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew.

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."

The Gospel of the Lord.

Two words. That is all it took. "Follow me." And a man whose life was defined by calculation, by ledgers and coin and the cold transaction of imperial tax collection, stood up and walked away from everything. Saint Augustine, meditating on this passage, is stunned by the instantaneity of Matthew's obedience. He writes that Christ called with His voice, but He compelled with His power. The words were external; the grace was internal. Matthew did not deliberate. He did not negotiate. The same omnipotent Word that said "Let there be light" over the darkness of the void said "Follow me" over the darkness of a soul, and the soul came forth into life.

This is the literal fact of the scene, and it contains within itself a staggering theological claim. Jesus does not audition disciples. He does not post requirements. He sees Matthew—sees him fully, in his compromise and his collaboration with an occupying pagan power—and chooses him precisely there, precisely then. Cornelius a Lapide, commenting on this passage, notes that Matthew was sitting, the posture of one settled in his ways, rooted in his profession, comfortable in his corruption. And yet the Lord does not wait for Matthew to reform himself before calling him. He calls him in order to reform him. This is the logic of divine mercy, and it upends every human expectation of worthiness.

The Pharisees cannot comprehend it. Their indignation at the supper table is not merely social snobbery. It is a theological error. They have constructed a vision of God as one who rewards the righteous and avoids the contaminated. And in doing so, they have made God in their own image—a God of transactions, of merit, of sacrifice rendered in exchange for divine approval. But Christ quotes Hosea against them with a precision that is almost surgical: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice." He is not abolishing sacrifice. He is revealing what sacrifice, rightly ordered, must flow from: a heart pierced by mercy, not one armored by self-congratulation.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, in his commentary on Matthew, distinguishes between the righteousness the Pharisees claim and the righteousness God desires. The Pharisees possess a legal righteousness, an external conformity to precept. But the righteousness unto which Christ calls Matthew—and through Matthew, every sinner—is a participated righteousness, a share in the very life of God poured into a soul remade by grace. This is what Paul describes in the Epistle: each one of us receiving grace "according to the measure of Christ's gift." Not according to our merit. Not according to our résumé of virtue. According to the measure of His gift. The word "measure" here is almost ironic, because the gift of Christ is, in its ultimate sense, unmeasured—it is the infinite self-donation of the Son of God to fallen humanity.

And this is why the Church gives us Psalm nineteen today, the great cosmic canticle of proclamation. The heavens declare the glory of God. The Apostles and Evangelists declare the mercy of God. Matthew, the former tax collector, becomes the first Evangelist to write the life of Christ in Hebrew, for the children of Israel, arguing from their own Scriptures that this Jesus is the fulfillment of every promise. The voice that once collected Caesar's toll now pours out the word of the Kingdom, day after day, to the ends of the earth.

There is, finally, an eschatological horizon here that ought to arrest us. Paul says the purpose of the apostolic and evangelical ministry is to bring us all to "mature manhood, to the extent of the full stature of Christ." The Church is not yet what she will be. Every homily, every baptism, every act of mercy, every Eucharist celebrated in the rubble of human sinfulness is a stone laid in the edifice of that final, perfect stature. Matthew took his place in that construction project the moment he rose from the customs post. The question the feast puts to us is simple and severe: from what seat are we being asked to rise today?

Matthew was not a saint who became a sinner whom Christ redeemed. He was a sinner whom Christ found at his worst and made into a saint and an Apostle. His feast is not primarily a biography—it is a proclamation. Born into a Jewish family in Galilee, he chose the most despised profession available to a son of Abraham: collecting taxes for Rome. He was ceremonially unclean, socially exiled, and theologically beyond the pale of polite religious society. And then Christ sat down at his table. That meal—that scandalous, holy, mercy-soaked supper—became the model for every Eucharist. The Lord eating with sinners, not to excuse their sin, but to swallow it up in His mercy. Matthew responded by spending the remainder of his life writing the Gospel that begins with Abraham and ends with the Great Commission, stitching together the entire salvation history of Israel into a single testimony to the One who called him from his post. Tradition holds he preached in Ethiopia and Persia, and died as a martyr, giving his blood for the One who had given him everything by two words spoken on an ordinary afternoon. His heroic virtue is simply this: he let himself be found, and then he went and found others.

Today, identify the customs post in your own life—the place of comfortable compromise, the settled sin, the chair you have been sitting in too long—and make the decision to rise when Christ calls. Do not wait until you feel worthy. Matthew never was, and that is precisely the point.

May Almighty God bless you, the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Praised be Jesus Christ, now and forever. Amen.

EPISODE_TITLE: Rise and Follow, Matthew
IMAGE_PROMPT: A Byzantine-style icon of Saint Matthew rising from a stone customs table as the luminous figure of Christ extends His hand toward him, with golden light flooding the scene and a scroll of the Gospel unfurling at Matthew's feet.