The Gospel of the feast is Matthew's account of his own call. Jesus, passing by, saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post and said, "Follow me," and he got up and followed him. There followed the meal at which the Lord sat with tax collectors and sinners and answered the objection with the words of Hosea: "I desire mercy, not sacrifice. I did not come to call the righteous but sinners." Mark and Luke tell the same story of a man they call Levi. The scene has shaped Christian imagination ever since; Caravaggio's Calling of Saint Matthew hangs in the French church in Rome that bears the apostle's name. A tax collector in first-century Galilee worked for the occupying power and was regarded as a public sinner. That the risen Lord's Church counts such a man among the Twelve and among the four evangelists is itself a statement of the Gospel. The first reading of the feast is Saint Paul's appeal to live in a manner worthy of the call received, with humility, gentleness, and patience, in the one body and one Spirit. Ancient tradition, going back to Papias, ascribes to Matthew a collection of the Lord's sayings in the Hebrew tongue, and the first Gospel of the canon bears his name. It is the Gospel most concerned with showing that Jesus fulfills the Law and the Prophets, and it is read on the Sundays of Year A. His symbol among the four living creatures is the winged man, traditionally connected with the human genealogy with which his Gospel opens. Red vestments are worn, since tradition honors him as a martyr.

Feast

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September 21

feast