Today we celebrate the feast of St Matthew, the Apostle, as Fr Paul reads from Matthew’s Gospel (9: 9-13) in which Matthew recounts how Jesus called him, saying ‘Follow me’.

Fr Paul says we know very little about Matthew’s life. Matthew was born in Capernaum and worked as a tax collector when Jesus called him, as we hear in today’s Gospel.  Matthew’s fellow Jews would have despised Matthew because, as a tax collector, he would have been seen as collaborating with the Roman occupation force.

Matthew was one of the witnesses to the Ascension of Jesus and, as we know, there is a Gospel attributed to Matthew, having read from it today.

In the tradition of our Church we always ask our saints to pray for us, Fr Paul says we pray today, St Matthew pray for us.