DGeMs- Daily Gospel eMessage
Dear Friend in the Lord,
“Call of Matthew” – Faith: In today’s Gospel, Jesus “called Matthew” the tax collector whom the public hates and considers a “great sinner”. Ponder on, “Jesus is able to see the goodness in Matthew in spite of the public’s opinions of him being a great sinner. What goodness in your heart does Jesus see, and wish to affirm?”
Fr Philip Heng, S.J.
Matthew 9:9-13
As Jesus was walking he saw a man named Matthew sitting by the custom house, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him.
While he was at dinner in the house it happened that a number of tax collectors and sinners came to sit at the table with Jesus and his disciples. When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners?’
When he heard this he replied, ‘It is not the healthy who need the doctor, but the sick. Go and learn the meaning of the words: What I want is mercy, not sacrifice. And indeed I did not come to call the virtuous, but sinners.’