2021년 9월 21일 성 마태오 사도 복음사가 축일
오늘의 복음 : http://info.catholic.or.kr/missa/default.asp
제1독서
에페소서. 4,1-7.11-13
형제 여러분,
1 주님 안에서 수인이 된 내가 여러분에게 권고합니다.
여러분이 받은 부르심에 합당하게 살아가십시오.
2 겸손과 온유를 다하고, 인내심을 가지고 사랑으로 서로 참아 주며,
3 성령께서 평화의 끈으로 이루어 주신 일치를 보존하도록 애쓰십시오.
4 하느님께서 여러분을 부르실 때에 하나의 희망을 주신 것처럼,
그리스도의 몸도 하나이고 성령도 한 분이십니다.
5 주님도 한 분이시고 믿음도 하나이며 세례도 하나이고,
6 만물의 아버지이신 하느님도 한 분이십니다.
그분은 만물 위에, 만물을 통하여, 만물 안에 계십니다.
7 그러나 그리스도께서 나누어 주시는 은혜의 양에 따라,
우리는 저마다 은총을 받았습니다.
11 그분께서 어떤 이들은 사도로, 어떤 이들은 예언자로,
어떤 이들은 복음 선포자로,
어떤 이들은 목자나 교사로 세워 주셨습니다.
12 성도들이 직무를 수행하고 그리스도의 몸을 성장시키는 일을 하도록,
그들을 준비시키시려는 것이었습니다.
13 그리하여 우리가 모두 하느님의 아드님에 대한 믿음과 지식에서
일치를 이루고 성숙한 사람이 되며
그리스도의 충만한 경지에 다다르게 됩니다.
복음
마태오. 9,9-13
그때에 9 예수님께서 길을 가시다가
마태오라는 사람이 세관에 앉아 있는 것을 보시고 말씀하셨다.
“나를 따라라.” 그러자 마태오는 일어나 그분을 따랐다.
10 예수님께서 집에서 식탁에 앉게 되셨는데,
마침 많은 세리와 죄인도 와서
예수님과 그분의 제자들과 자리를 함께하였다.
11 그것을 본 바리사이들이 그분의 제자들에게 말하였다.
“당신네 스승은 어째서 세리와 죄인들과 함께 음식을 먹는 것이오?”
12 예수님께서 이 말을 들으시고 그들에게 말씀하셨다.
“튼튼한 이들에게는 의사가 필요하지 않으나
병든 이들에게는 필요하다.
13 너희는 가서 ‘내가 바라는 것은 희생 제물이 아니라 자비다.’ 하신 말씀이
무슨 뜻인지 배워라.
사실 나는 의인이 아니라 죄인을 부르러 왔다.”
September 21, 2021
Feast of Saint Matthew, Apostle and evangelist
Daily Mass : http://www.catholictv.com/shows/daily-mass
Reading 1
Eph 4:1-7, 11-13
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.
Responsorial Psalm
Ps 19:2-3, 4-5
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.
R. 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.
R. Their message goes out through all the earth.
Gospel
Mt 9:9-13
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."
http://onlineministries.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/daily.html
For a change, let’s approach the readings of this feast by listening to the Collect prayer, which of course sets the framework and tone as we gather for worship. Here is the text of the prayer in the English version of the Roman Missal:
O God, who with untold mercy were pleased to choose as an Apostle Saint Matthew, the tax collector, grant that, sustained by his example and intercession, we may merit to hold firm in following you. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.
It pays to slow down and listen attentively to the words of a Collect, and to meditate on the implications of the relationships the prayer presumes. As a community formed by praying the Lord’s Prayer together, we feel it in our bones that we are addressing the One that brother Jesus taught us to address as his Father — and now as ours. “Untold mercy”? Mercy that remains to be heard? If we hear it that way, it is a happy accident, as it sounds like a clever way to refer to an evangelist, i.e. a person who tells the Good News. True enough. But actually, we know that another meaning of telling is counting. So mercy untold is mercy beyond counting, abundant mercy. (The author of the Collect may also be aware of another irony: Matthew’s work involved literal counting—of coins! So that suggests another wordplay: Jesus was calling him to a grace “beyond counting” in still another sense.) But I digress.
Having characterized the Father as abundantly merciful we anticipate some expression of that amazing mercy and we get it, in a wonderful paradox. He chose as an Apostle (literally “a sent one" enabled to act with the authority of the Sender!) and, to our amazement, a tax collector! Anyone who had a first grade religion class knows that Saint Matthew was the tax collector among the Twelve. Yes, but now allow yourself the adult thought that a tax collector in the Palestine of Jesus’ day was properly called a toll collector who worked in a tax office collecting money at a border crossing. That meant he worked for a boss who ultimately worked for the hated Roman government. Think of what is going on here. If he was really chosen to act as somehow exercising divine authority, he had to leave Caesar to work for God. The tax collector is not a job description; for Matthew it was a situation (with a lot of ‘baggage’).
So far, the sentence is looking to the past. Now comes the request. This, after all, is a group petition, expressed by the presiding priest in the name of the community: Grant that … we may hold firm in following you. First let me explain the gap dots; they point to the language that describes our situation (one of blessing, not baggage). We are sustained by two things—Saint Matthew’s example and his intercession. The intercession is easy to explain but hard to realize; we have learned that saints pray for us because they are part of the Church Triumphant who know God directly, but remain connected with our part of the body of Christ and continue to love us with their intersession. The final clause of the prayer, set off as a separate sentence, hints at how this works.
But what about Saint Matthew sustaining us by his example? That’s the kicker. That is the payoff toward which the whole prayer was building. What is it about Matthew’s example that we are called to imitate? The very raising of that question takes me to a conversation I had during lunch recently with a fellow Jesuit, who follows the Vatican online coverage of the daily homilies of Pope Francis. He observed that Francis returns frequently to Caravaggio’s painting of the call of Matthew the tax collector. The painting hangs in a church in Rome, and pictures Matthew to the left in the semidarkness, his face illuminated by a beam of sunlight. He is at table with a normal-looking group of all ages, some already alerted by Jesus sudden presence, others still focused on the counting of coins. To the right, the figure of Jesus, catching Matthew’s eye and beckoning him to follow him, a call expressed visually by the gesture of Jesus’ finger. Another person is pointing to Matthew, as if to show Jesus the person he is looking for. And Matthew is pointing to himself, as if to say, “Who? Me?” He seems to sense that this is a call to more than a to a change of job description (from tax collector to preacher). He will soon learn that it is a call to a radical change of life (from being owned by Caesar, to companionship with Jesus). Indeed, Pope Francis uses a Latin motto hatched by the Venerable Bede (halfway in time between Matthew’s actual call and Caravaggio’s picture) to describe the call of Matthew (roughly rendered in English “calling with abundant mercy”) as the motto for his own papacy. And Francis speaks frequently of contemplating Caravaggio’s painting, with himself in Matthew’s place, targeted by Jesus’ finger inviting him to a continuing conversion, to a joyful surrender to a new way of belonging — really a new creation.
As I began this reflection pondering the prayer of the Feast’s Collect, let me end with a prayer of my own:
Thank you, Lord, for creating the occasion for me to pause, listen, and re-enter my Church’s prayer, this Feast’s Collect. Thank you also for Caravaggio’s artistry and Pope Francis’ application of it to his own experience of the call of Jesus to ongoing conversion. I am amazed to find myself praying for the grace of being sustained by Matthew’s example. As Francis has learned to see, Matthew realized that Jesus so loved him that he understood that he (Matthew) was caught in a way of life, a self-centered way seeking love, from which he needed rescue, a new way of belonging and being loved and loving and a new way of belonging to human community. It is not all about me; it is about all of us who identify as following Jesus and wanting to do it better. Now is the worst of times and the best of times. Creator God, I know that others have used that phrase about their day. But your chosen leader for your church, Francis, has helped us recognize that we live during a moment when human beings have sinned more egregiously than ever against your creation; and yet we also experience a new call to hear both the cry of the Earth and the cry of Earth’s poorest. On this feast of Saint Matthew, help us recognize your finger beckoning us to collaborate with you in mitigating the harm we have done to our common home. And help us walk with those who have suffered most from the harm we, the so-called powerful and privileged, have helped to bring about. You have created all out of love. Help us hear your invitation to embrace all of our fellow creatures in a sharing of that self-giving love in the company of Jesus.
http://www.presentationministries.com/obob/obob.asp
WALKING OFF THE JOB
“I plead with you, then, as a prisoner for the Lord, to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” —Ephesians 4:1
Are you on a job that’s not just a waste of time but even immoral? You may not be a a human-trafficker or a member of a crime syndicate, but does what you produce, package, or sell distract or turn people from Christ? Life is too short to waste it working for perishable food (see Jn 6:27). Eternity is too long to live for self rather than for Christ. Jesus did not die on the cross for you to spend your time doing something other than His will. He has a precious plan for your life and work. Don’t accept anything less than God’s best. Look at what the Lord did with St. Matthew’s life. He called him to compose a Gospel of the New Testament.
All this does not apply to people who merely don’t like their jobs, but only to those whose work is immoral, in that it doesn’t serve God’s interests. Most people are called to stay on their jobs, even if they don’t like them. Yet there are plenty of people, like Matthew, who need to walk away from their jobs.
Ask yourself: Is Jesus entering my place of employment, looking me right in the eyes, and saying to me what He said to Matthew: “Follow Me”? (Mt 9:9) If so, may you do the same thing Matthew did: Get up and follow Jesus.
Prayer: Jesus, I accept You as Lord of my life and my job.
Promise: “People who are in good health do not need a doctor; sick people do.” —Mt 9:12
Praise: St. Matthew once thought only of his own profit. Then he met Jesus, the ultimate Prophet, and thought only of working for King Jesus.
http://dailyscripture.servantsoftheword.org/readings/
Who do you love and cherish the most? God did not intend for us to be alone, but to be with others. He gives us many opportunities for developing relationships with family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers. Why does Jesus seem to ignore his own relatives when they pressed to see him? His love and respect for his mother and his relatives is unquestionable. Jesus never lost an opportunity to teach his disciples a spiritual lesson and truth about the kingdom of God. On this occasion when many gathered to hear Jesus he pointed to another higher reality of relationships, namely our relationship with God and with those who belong to God.
What is the essence of being a Christian? It is certainly more than doctrine, precepts, and commandments. It is first and foremost a relationship - a relationship of trust, affection, commitment, loyalty, faithfulness, kindness, thoughtfulness, compassion, mercy, helpfulness, encouragement, support, strength, protection, and so many other qualities that bind people together in mutual love and unity.
God seeks a personal intimate relationship with each one of us
God offers us the greatest of relationships - union of heart, mind, and spirit with himself, the very author and source of love (1 John 4:8,16). God's love never fails, never forgets, never compromises, never lies, never lets us down nor disappoints us. His love is consistent, unwavering, unconditional, unrelenting and unstoppable. There is no end to his love. Nothing in this world can make him leave us, ignore us, or withhold from us his merciful love and care (Romans 8:31-39). He will love us no matter what. It is his nature to love. That is why he created us - to be united with him and to share in his love (1 John 3:1).
God is a trinity of divine persons - one in being with the eternal Father, Son, and Holy Spirit - and a community of undivided love. God made us in his image and likeness (Genesis 1:26,27) to be a people who are free to choose what is good, loving, and just and to reject whatever is false and contrary to his love and righteousness (moral goodness). That is why Jesus challenged his followers, and even his own earthly relatives, to recognize that God is the true source of all relationships. God wants all of our relationships to be rooted in his love and goodness.
The heavenly Father's offer of friendship and adoption
Jesus Christ is God's love incarnate - God's love made visible in human flesh (1 John 4:9-10). That is why Jesus describes himself as the good shepherd who lays down his life for his sheep and the shepherd who seeks out the sheep who have strayed and lost their way. God is like the father who yearns for his prodigal son to return home and then throws a great party for his son when he has a change of heart and comes back (Luke 15:11-32).
Jesus offered up his life on the cross for our sake, so that we could be forgiven and restored to unity and friendship with God. It is through Jesus that we become the adopted children of God - his own sons and daughters. That is why Jesus told his disciples that they would have many new friends and family relationships in his kingdom. Whoever does the will of God is a friend of God and a member of his family - his sons and daughters who have been ransomed by the precious blood of Jesus Christ.
Through Jesus Christ we become brothers and sisters - members of God's family
Lucian of Antioch (240-312 AD), an early Christian martyr once said that "a Christian's only relatives are the saints"- namely those who have been redeemed by the blood of Christ and adopted as sons and daughters of God. Those who have been baptized into Jesus Christ and who live as his disciples enter into a new family, a family of "saints" here on earth and in heaven. Jesus changes the order of relationships and shows that true kinship is not just a matter of flesh and blood.
Our adoption as sons and daughters of God transforms all of our relationships and requires a new order of loyalty to God first and to his kingdom of righteousness and peace. Do you want to grow in love and friendship? Allow the Holy Spirit to transform your heart, mind, and will to enable you to love freely and generously as God has loved you.
Heavenly Father, you are the source of all true friendship and love. In all my relationships, may your love be my constant guide for choosing what is good and for rejecting what is contrary to your will.
Psalm 122:1-5
1 I was glad when they said to me, "Let us go to the house of the LORD!"
2 Our feet have been standing within your gates, O Jerusalem!
3 Jerusalem, built as a city which is bound firmly together,
4 to which the tribes go up, the tribes of the LORD, as was decreed for Israel, to give thanks to the name of the LORD.
5 There thrones for judgment were set, the thrones of the house of David.
Daily Quote from the Early Church Fathers: Those who listen and obey God's word become true children of God, by Cyril of Alexandria (376-444 AD)
"The present lesson teaches us that obedience and listening to God are the causes of every blessing. Some entered and spoke respectfully about Christ's holy mother and his brothers. He answered in these words, 'My mother and my brothers are they who hear the word of God and do it.' Now do not let any one imagine that Christ scorned the honor due to his mother or contemptuously disregarded the love owed to his brothers. He spoke the law by Moses and clearly said, 'Honor your father and your mother, that it may be well with you' (Deuteronomy 5:16). How, I ask, could he have rejected the love due to brothers, who even commanded us to love not merely our brothers but also those who are enemies to us? He says, 'Love your enemies' (Matthew 5:44).
"What does Christ want to teach? His object is to exalt highly his love toward those who are willing to bow the neck to his commands. I will explain the way he does this. The greatest honors and the most complete affection are what we all owe to our mothers and brothers. If he says that they who hear his word and do it are his mother and brothers, is it not plain to every one that he bestows on those who follow him a love thorough and worthy of their acceptance? He would make them readily embrace the desire of yielding themselves to his words and of submitting their mind to his yoke, by means of a complete obedience." (excerpt from COMMENTARY ON LUKE, HOMILY 42)
More Homilies
