Today’s liturgical memorial highlights an important aspect of putting oneself under God’s authority and how everything is not as expected. Most people believe that they should be assigned roles in the community of faith (or any other community for that matter) based on experience and training. Sound sensible? Well, not according Jesus. What we see in Jesus certain ministerial arrangements of the Twelve Apostles and their talents we not as expected. Saint Matthew’s experience of managing money (he was a former tax collector) was not used. Jesus appointed Judas, not Saint Matthew, to be in charge of the money. How often this happens in the ministry of the Church! Bishops and religious superiors often ask their subjects to things that they may not have been trained for, or even have the desire to do. Clearly this is a helpful lesson to all tempted to be troubled over how they aren’t used as they should be (humanly speaking)!
What does the feast of Saint Matthew mean for the Church? This feast of Matthew indicates that if we say we place our lives into the hands of God, then we need to expect the unexpected and trust that Someone greater than ourselves may have a deeper insight into our humanity than we have for ourselves. Christ is the Divine Being who knows us better than we know ourselves! Think of Psalm 139. How freeing it can be if we allow the Lord to take the lead and truly guide our hearts and minds and hands for His greater glory and not our own! I think it is a beautiful experience to allow God’s grace to open a new vista of what it means to be a disciple of the Lord who comes to offer new life (a new ministry?) through another person so that the default answer to a question of Christian life is positive rather than the typical negative. Saint Matthew’s experience in the very early community of faith is very instructive for us who believe that we are our own measures. Can you imagine abundance? Can you imagine doing something new and exciting that you’ve never thought of before now?