On the Feast of Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

I have not given much thought to Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist, for a long time. His Gospel yes, but the person no.

I remember the first Bible I ever got, which is still around, in a closet in my parents’ house. It’s a thick, large-print tome I received on the occasion of my first Communion. I remember thinking, then or perhaps sometime later, that Matthew was my favorite Gospel. In college, I admired Mark for his bare bones and seemingly incomplete account of Jesus’ life. Later, I preferred John for his “high Christology,” philosophical tendencies, and allegedly quasi-Gnostic leanings. At some point in the middle there, I know I thought of myself as a “Luke man,” based on some lector’s manual’s appraisal that “nobody tells a story like Luke.”

If you asked me yesterday to name my favorite Gospel, I probably would’ve said that I didn’t have one, but if pressed I might have said Matthew, if only because Matthew has the Sermon on the Mount, an indispensible bit of Scripture.

I’ve thought a lot about the Gospel of Matthew, but not much about Matthew the Evangelist. Seeing as this blog’s first post was made on the Feast of Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist, I hereby name this blog “The Wingèd Man” and declare Matthew its patron.

That’s it for now.

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