Saturday morning, I am going to celebrate the feast of Matthew the Apostle at the parish of St Matthew in Ripley, which has both an English and Spanish speaking communities. It will be a pleasure celebrating their feast day with them.
Today, it is a great
honor to celebrate the feast of our parish’s patron saint – St Matthew the
Apostle. We celebrate the life
of faith of this community, the journey that all of us are on together as
modern-day disciples of Christ. It is interesting to
see how several of the parishes in Northeast Mississippi are named in honor of
different apostles – St Matthew here in Ripley, St James the Greater in Tupelo,
and St James the Lesser in Corinth. It would be a mistake
to see these apostles as these super-human men who did not have any human
flaws, because they certainly did.
Matthew was a Jew who
worked for the occupying Roman government in Jerusalem. He collected taxes from
his fellow Jews. The Romans were most
concerned about getting their taxes collected and very commonly turned a blind
eye to any additional bribes or fees that the tax collectors forced the people
to pay, money that the tax collectors kept for themselves. The tax collectors were
viewed as traitors by their countrymen. Thus, his fellow Jews
would be shocked to see Jesus call Matthew, a tax collector, to be one of his
beloved disciples.
God calls us to be his
disciple in the reality of our lives, in the midst of our very human strengths
and weaknesses. God's grace can work
wonders in our lives as we repent and turn away from those things that keep us
from God. Jesus tells us that he specifically came to
call sinners to repentance and to have them come to him. Matthew answers Jesus'
call without hesitation: the Gospel tells us that Matthew got up from his
custom post and followed him. As we celebrate
Matthew’s feast day today, we can all ask ourselves: What is Jesus calling us
to leave behind in our own lives? What do we need to do
in order to answer the call of repentance & conversion, to truly be
disciples of Christ?
En nuestra fe católica, tenemos la creencia en la
comunidad de los santos. El santo de nuestra parroquia, San Mateo, es un
miembro de esta comunidad de los santos. Como sabemos, después de su conversión, Mateo
escribió el Evangelio según San Mateo. Su Evangelio no es tanto una biografía completa de
Jesucristo, sino más bien una manera para fortalecer la fe de los cristianos
judíos y persuadir a los otros judios a la fe. Mateo tenía el don de ser un narrador natural de
cuentos. Su Evangelio todavia tiene una gran influencia en
nuestra fe católica. Me gusta mucho venir aquí a nuestra parroquia de
San Mateo en Ripley como una parte de mi papel como pastor de la Iglesia
Santiago en Tupelo. Admiro a los dones de esta comunidad y la gran
diversidad que existe aquí. En nuestra honestidad, podemos decir que a veces hay
tensiones con la diversidad aqui, pero también hay mucho gozo y una gran
expresión de fe. Estamos aquí juntos como hermanos en Cristo. Estamos aquí para proclamar el reino de Dios
juntos, para caminar juntos como hermanos en Cristo. Hoy, en la celebración de San Mateo, podemos
proclamar nuestra fe, nuestra solidaridad, y nuestra unidad. Es importante porque somos en este camino
juntos.
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