Lives Of The Saints
September 21
St Matthew
Matthew is remembered as a beautiful conversion saint. Christ sees the despised tax collector, speaks, and Matthew rises and follows; everything else in the life grows out of that act of grace.
Saint Matthew, Jusepe de Ribera (1632)
Brief life
St Matthew is best told simply, because the center of his life is one of the purest moments of grace in the Gospel. A tax collector, belonging to a profession despised by his own people, he is called by Christ with a word. Matthew rises, leaves all, and follows. Everything else belongs around that moment.
He becomes one of the Twelve, the evangelist whose Gospel bears his name, and a public witness of the Christ who first showed him mercy. The later traditions about his preaching journeys and martyrdom are too uncertain to be told with confidence. That restraint is not a loss. It leaves the true key of the life in plain sight: mercy found him where he sat, and he answered at once.
Historical note
This life especially emphasizes the calling of St Matthew from the custom-house and notes that the details of his later preaching and martyrdom are not certainly known.
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