Feast of Saint Matthew

 

Saint Matthew (also called Levi) was one of the 12 Apostles and wrote the first Gospel. He was a tax collector and when Jesus called him, he invited Jesus to dinner at his place with the other tax collectors and other assorted sinners. The Pharisees didn't care for this kind of thing; Jesus told them, "I came not to call the just, but sinners."

Which is really good news for all of US!

As for the painting, it's entitled "The Martyrdom of St. Matthew" (and you should know by now that I will stick a painting by my man, Caravaggio, on this site whenever I can). So how did St. Matthew die? According to the Catholic Encyclopedia,"There is a disagreement as to the place of St. Matthew's martyrdom and the kind of torture inflicted on him, therefore it is not known whether he was burned, stoned, or beheaded. The Roman Martyrology simply says: "S. Matthæi, qui in Æthiopia prædicans martyrium passus est".