Magnificat - Praying with Saint Matthew’s Gospel: Daily Reflections on the Gospel of Saint Matthew

Foreword

Father Peter John Cameron, O.P.

T oward the conclusion of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus turns his gaze on all those who are willing to listen to his voice, and he speaks these words:

Usually when someone tells us not to worry, the first thing we do is worry. But there is something different about the way that Jesus says it. It is not just counsel, advice... certainly not a warning. Rather, it is a promise . The care of the Father has come to us in the flesh: Emmanuel, God is with us (see Mt 1: 23). When Joseph was worried about taking the expectant Virgin Mary as his wife, this was the consoling assurance that the angelic messenger of God the Father gave to the distraught Joseph so that he would become the foster father of the Son of God.

The whole of the Gospel of Matthew is a plea to heed this pledge. The Someone whom our heart seeks the Someone who was able to draw the Magi (Mt 2: 1-12) from the safety and security of their far-away homes and lead them to the improbable throne of the manger is calling us forth from all our concerns. God has come close to us. To seek his kingdom is to desire the closeness he longs to share with us. To seek his righteousness is to say yes, again and again, to the way that Jesus wills to be one with us in our need, healing our resistance, our doubt, our inner division with his presence.

Matthew himself experienced the glory of such obedience through his self-surrender to the Lords two simple words: Follow me (Mt 9: 9). Somehow he sensed in that seconds-long exchange that the Everything he had always sought and that had always evaded him was being given to him in a way he had never imagined: in the face of a friend who would never leave his side: I am with you always, until the end of the age (Mt 28: 20).

Seek first the Fathers kingdom, the Fathers righteousness. We find it in the companionship of his Son who foresees our resistance, anticipates our needs, and undoes our every alibi. With the entire tenderness of heaven he begs,

The Gospel of Matthew is a living testament that we are not alone in our struggles, we are not left to ourselves in our trials. Everything will be given to us when we live from the certainty that we belong to the Father. That Belonging is who we are! Even if we come late to this awareness, the Father pays us with a wage of love equal to what our aching hearts crave (Mt 20: 9). Even if we have lived our life in a slavery of fear, the Father will stoop to the most ingenious ways to hand over his Son to us to transform us into his sons and daughters. Jesus is the talent the Father entrusts to us so that we will invest in his own desire for us to share the Masters joy (see Mt 25: 14-30).

How to use this book

Praying with Saint Matthews Gospel is designed to help you in your life of faith in many ways. You can follow along each day of the year by reading the entry that corresponds to the days date. Or you can begin your reading with that section of the book that matches the Churchs reading of the Gospel of Matthew in the lectionary for Sunday Mass. For this purpose a handy table has been included on the inside front and back cover of the book that links the Gospel texts with each Sunday of the liturgical year. In this way, Praying with Saint Matthews Gospel serves as an ideal way to prepare for the Sunday liturgy. Another idea is to read Praying with Saint Matthews Gospel with a group of friends, studying the Gospel chapter by chapter and letting this book accompany you as a guide. In whatever way you choose to use Praying with Saint Matthews Gospel , your lectio divina (prayerful sacred reading) of the Scripture with the help of this volume will lead you to seek the kingdom of the Father and to see how, through his Son, he generously gives us everything we need.

INTRODUCTION
Surrender at a Glance

Simeon Leiva-Merikakis, o.c.s.o.

As Jesus passed on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the customs post. He said to him, Follow me. And he got up and followed him. While he was at table in his house, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat with Jesus and his disciples. (Mt 9: 9-10)

S uch is the stark record that the evangelist Matthew has left us of what was surely the most memorable event in his life: Jesus sudden irruption into his self-satisfied and worldly existence, when with one piercing glance and two well-placed words the Lord turned the greedy entrepreneur into a zealous apostle.

A great deal of the meaning of Matthews Gospel may be read in this one scene. The way that Jesus, unbidden, mysteriously enters the space of Matthews self-centered existence corresponds precisely to how the eternal Word of the Father unexpectedly slipped into our world, searching out what was lost (10: 6). With him he brings the light that enables us to see ourselves for the first time as we really are, the light that reveals both the deeper neediness and the deeper longing concealed just beneath the surface of all our busy ambitions and so-called successes.

In any other circumstance this sudden unmasking of a persons sham existence by Jesus mere glance would surely hurl most of us into resentful denial. But in this one baffling instance we, identifying with Matthew, feel urged to embrace our exposure with humility as a saving truth. There can be only one reason for this unaccountable reaction: the sublime power of Jesus person and presence. Rather than lash back with insolence or run away with shame, Matthew simply takes Jesus up on his invitation and follows him. Somehow, basking in the company of Jesus, all of our personal sins, infidelities, and fears can gladly become exposed before the world, because we sense the power of God at work here, healing us.

A painful revelation that without Jesus would be reason for endless shame becomes a way of purification leading to new life. Forgiven shame becomes a source of constant joy. We will never cease marveling at the superhuman magnetism that must have flowed from the arresting beauty of Jesus face and voice for two little words, Follow me, radically to have changed on the spot the course of a very ambitious mans life.

Clearly, this vocation story constitutes the very pattern of how anyone, by encountering Jesus, can become a Christian, which is to say an intimate disciple of the Son of God. Henceforward all the hope and energy that fuel Matthews life derive from this one moment of encounter, when the inscrutable freedom of the gracious God visited the dark recesses of Matthews life to lift him up to life eternal. In time he writes his Gospel with only one goal in mind: to make available to us his own encounter with the living Word so that we too may become glad disciples of Christ.

Light in Our Darkness: God Is with Us

Now, even though Jesus says to Matthew, Follow me , in the very next scene we see Jesus seated at table in Matthews house, dining with many tax collectors and sinners. When the Pharisees object to his rubbing elbows with sinners in this way, Jesus retorts: Those who are well do not need a physician, but the sick do... I did not come to call the righteous but sinners (9: 12-13). Surely this is shockingly good news that considering oneself righteous disqualifies one from being called by Jesus!