Saint Matthew Apostle Saint Of The Day September 21

CATHOLIC SAINTS 28-12-2023, 19:38

St Matthew Apostle and Evangelist September 21

 

St Matthew Apostle and Evangelist

Saint Of The Day September 21

 


St Matthew Apostle and Evangelist September 21 (1st centuly)

 

St Matthew, the Patron of tax-collectors and of bankers, was a collector of customs duties for King Herod Antipas at Capernaum, when our Lord called him to follow him. Also known as Levi, the publican, he was so overjoyed at his new calling that he spread a great feast in his home for the Master and his disciples, even inviting his fellow tax-gatherers. Jesus, to the amazement of the Pharisees, comfortably dined with the very people the leaders of Israel despised as extortionists and traitors, and would not even think of ever eating with. Beyond these few facts, hardly anything is known about the life and death of this Apostle.

 

Levi, the son of Alphaeus (Mk 2:14), obviously had a certain amount of education, for he knew Aramaic as well as Greek and was accustomed to writing. The name Matthew (Mattija or “Gift of Jahweh”) was probably given him by Christ himself. He was one of the first Apostles to be chosen to set down in writing the essential events of our Lord’s life and discourses as he himself had witnessed them and as they were being orally taught by all the Apostles. In fact, it is generally assumed that, when writing his Gospel, Matthew had before him his own collection of Our Lord’s discourses in Aramaic. This original text, however, has unfortunately disappeared.

 

Matthew’s Gospel was produced not so much as a complete biography of Christ, but as a means of consolidating the faith of Jewish Christians, who were still exposed to strong Judaic influences, and of persuading his still unconverted fellow-Jews. For this reason, using his gift of story telling, and writing in Aramaic, the language widely used as the lingua franca by the Jews and others in the time of Christ, he groups together all acts and precepts of a similar nature, and stresses particularly that Jesus completely fulfilled all the familiar prophecies concerning the Messiah: He was the Emmanuel, who was born of a virgin (Isaiah), at Bethlehem (Micheas), who fled to Egypt (Osee), was heralded by a precursor, was able to cure the sick, and who conformed in all actions, and even his Passion and Death, to the ancient prophecies of Isaiah.

 

Another point which Matthew stresses particularly is the fact that the Jewish nation as a body was to be excluded from the Messianic Kingdom because of its obstinate unbelief and its rejection of the Messiah, and that it would be given “to a nation which would yield proper fruits”. St Matthew whose relics are said to have been found in Salerno in 1080, is believed to have been martyred by stoning.

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