Devotion - Monday, September 21

Today is the Feast Day of St. Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist.  We know Matthew - better than many of the other Apostles - because of the Gospel which bears his name.  We know that Matthew considered it very important that Jesus be the fulfillment of Old Testament prophesies, so he includes repeated references to them in his account of the life and ministry stories.

We know a lot about what he thought and said; we know much less about who he was as a person.

He was a tax collector; we get that in his call story (Matthew 9:9ff).  Most everything else is legend or tradition.  

I am grateful for his thoughts, but I wonder how much we might gain from knowing more of his own attempts to follow Jesus.

In a community where following Jesus defines us; how is it that we have become so concerned with thoughts and beliefs; often at the expense of paying attention to the art of following?