Revised and Expanded: Saint Matthew the Apostle, From Caesar's Collector of Tribute to God's Collector of Souls

The response was immediate. The corrupt collector of tribute for the Roman occupiers, Levi, heard the call of Jesus of Nazareth and gave up his lucrative business at once. He went from being Caesar's collector of tribute to being God's collector souls. Levi, also known as Matthew, recorded his specific call to be one of the twelve Apostles in the Gospel he wrote under the inspiration of the the Third Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, God the Holy Ghost, within the first decade following Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Ascension to the Father's right hand in glory on Ascension Thursday:

And when Jesus passed on from hence, he saw a man sitting in the custom house, named Matthew; and he saith to him: Follow me. And he rose up and followed him. And it came to pass as he was sitting at meat in the house, behold many publicans and sinners came, and sat down with Jesus and his disciples.

And the Pharisees seeing it, said to his disciples: Why doth your master eat with publicans and sinners? But Jesus hearing it, said: They that are in health need not a physician, but they that are ill. Go then and learn what this meaneth, I will have mercy and not sacrifice. For I am not come to call the just, but sinners.  (Mt. 9: 9-13)

Saint Jerome, whose feast day is celebrated annually on September 30, wrote about Our Lord's call of Saint Matthew with the clarity of Catholic truth that distinguishes him to this very day from so-called "Scripture scholars" and "exegetes" within the counterfeit church of conciliarism:

The other Evangelists, out of tenderness towards the reputation and honour of Matthew, have abstained from speaking of him as a publican by his ordinary name, and have called him Levi. Both names were his. But Matthew himself, according to what Solomon saith: The just man is the first to accuse himself, Prov. xviii. 17, and again, in another place: Declare thou thy sins that thou mayest be justified, doth plainly call himself Matthew the publican, to show unto his readers that none need be hopeless of salvation if he will but strive to do better, since he himself had been all of a sudden changed from a publican into an Apostle.

Porphyry and the Emperor Julian (the Apostate) will have it that the account of this call of Matthew is either a stupid blunder on the part of a lying writer, or else that it showeth what fools they were who followed the Saviour, to go senselessly after any one who called them. But there can be no doubt that before the Apostles believed they had considered the great signs and works of power which had gone before. Moreover, the glory and majesty of the hidden God, which shone somewhat through the Face of the Man Christ Jesus, were enough to draw them which gazed thereon, even at first sight. For if there be in a stone a magnetic power which can make rings and straws and rods come and cleave thereunto, how much more must not the Lord of all creatures have been able to draw unto Himself them whom He called?

And it came to pass, as Jesus sat at meat in the house, behold, many publicans and sinners came and sat down with Him. They saw how that a publican who had turned to better things had found a place of repentance, and therefore they also hoped for salvation. It was not, as the Scribes and Pharisees complained, sinners clinging to their sinfulness who came to Jesus, but sinners repenting, as indeed appeareth from the next words of the Lord, where He saith: I will have mercy and not sacrifice; for I am not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance. The Lord went to eat with sinners to the end that He might have occasion to teach, and to break spiritual bread unto them which bade Him. (Matins, Divine Office, Feast of Saint Matthew the Apostle.)

Yes, Our Lord was merciful towards sinners who sought to reform their lives and to do penance for their sins.

How can it not be clear that Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his band of spiritual robber barons want to reaffirm hardened sinners in their lives of licentiousness?

Jorge Mario Bergoglio and his band of spiritual robber barons desire to make sinners feel good about themselves as they reprimand those who want to call them to correction!  Bergoglio and his crew of theological wreckers are agents of Antichrist himself as everything that they say and do is opposed to the Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Christ and His Sacred Deposit of Faith.

Saint Matthew wanted to repent of his sins, thus leaving a sinful life to follow Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ during His Public Ministry, joining Saint John the Beloved as one of the two Apostles who were also evangelists. Saint Matthew's immediate response to the call of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ reminds us of the fact that Our Lord beckons us to follow Him throughout the course our lives, starting in Baptism, when we become incorporated into the Mystical Body of Christ as members of the Catholic Church. Our souls are closer to God than the angels themselves at the moment of our Baptism.

Fallen human nature being what it is, however, we fall away from our initial call. Our Venial Sins incline us all the more to serve at the beck and call of our pride and our passions. Our unchecked falling into Venial Sins can lead, God forbid, into the horror of Mortal Sin, making us the enemies of God until we are reconciled to Him in the Sacred Tribunal of Penance. As Saint Matthew's example teaches us, however, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ has come to call the sinners to Himself. Thus it is that He seeks out His lost sheep, namely, us, if we fall into Mortal Sins so that our immortal souls, once regenerated in the life-giving waters of the Baptismal font, can be resuscitated from the spiritual death we had chosen for ourselves. Extending to us His ineffable, gratuitous, unmerited Mercy, Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ asks us to follow Him anew once as an alter Christus Absolves us of our sins and assigns to us a penance as a condition of the Absolution that has restored us to His friendship once again.

Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ bids us to follow Him in all of the circumstances of our lives, making sure that there is never even once moment when we are not conscious of the fact that we give unto Him all of our sufferings and merits and prayers through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother. We are called to bear a visible, tangible witness to Him and the truths He has entrusted solely to Holy Mother Church by means of Sacred Scripture and Apostolic (or Sacred) Tradition, the two sources of Divine Revelation.

Here is the account of Saint Matthew's life and work as an Apostle and Evangelist as found in today's Divine Office:

It came to pass one day at Capernaum, that Christ went forth, and saw a publican, named Levi, sitting at the receipt of custom; and He said unto him: Follow Me. And he left all, rose up, and followed Him. And Levi made Him a great feast in his own house. This Levi is the Apostle and Evangelist Matthew. After that Christ was risen again from the dead, and while he was yet in Judea, before he set forth for that land which had fallen to the lot of his preaching, he wrote the Gospel of Jesus Christ in the Hebrew tongue, for the sake of them of the circumcision who had believed. His was the first written of the four Gospels. Thereafter he went to Ethiopia, and there preached the Gospel, confirming his preaching with many miracles.

Of his miracles, the most notable was that he raised the King's daughter from the dead, and thereby brought to believe in Christ the King her father, his wife, and all that region. After that the King was dead, Hirtacus, who came after him, was fain to take his daughter Iphigenia to wife, but by the exhortation of Matthew she had made vow of her maidenhood to God, and stood firm to that holy resolution, for which cause Hirtacus commanded to slay the Apostle at the Altar while he was performing the mystery. He crowned the dignity of the Apostleship with the glory of martyrdom upon the 21 st day of September. His body had been brought to Salerno, where it was afterwards buried in a Church dedicated in his name during the papacy of Gregory VII, and there it is held in great worship and sought to by great gatherings of people. (Matins, The Divine Office, Feast of Saint Matthew the Apostle.)

Saint Matthew, who was called from a life of sin to help call each us to a life of holiness, wrote his Gospel to help his fellow Jews to see in Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ the Messiah for Whom they had been waiting. As a faithful follower of Our Lord, Saint Matthew wanted all people in the world, including Jews, to walk on the rocky road that leads to the narrow Gate of Life Himself as members of the Catholic Church. Endowed with the personal charism of infallibility (as were each of the Twelve Apostles following the descent of God the Holy Ghost upon them and our dear Blessed Mother on Pentecost Sunday), Saint Matthew preached with clarity and conviction about the necessity of embracing the true Faith so that his hearers could save their souls. He brought the true Faith to Persia and to Ethiopia, where he would give up his life as a witness to the very words of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ that He recorded in the Gospel he wrote under the inspiration of God the Holy Ghost:

Therefore fear them not. For nothing is covered that shall not be revealed: nor hid, that shall not be known. That which I tell you in the dark, speak ye in the light: and that which you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops. And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.  (Mt. 10: 26-30)

Saint Matthew's Gospel starts with the Genealogy of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, containing with its vivid text a narrative of His Nativity and the Sermon on the Mount (Chapters 5 through 7), which is a great resource for spiritual reading and encouragement on a daily basis. And Saint Matthew records the words of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ as He upbraided the Jews for their disbelief in Him, words that could be addressed to the wolves in shepherds' clothing in the conciliar structures, men who sit down with unbelievers and infidels and schismatics and heretics without once seeking to convert them to the true Faith:

Woe to thee, Corozain, woe to thee, Bethsaida: for if in Tyre and Sidon had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in you, they had long ago done penance in sackcloth and ashes. But I say unto you, it shall be more tolerable for Tyre and Sidon in the day of judgment, than for you. And thou Capharnaum, shalt thou be exalted up to heaven? thou shalt go down even unto hell. For if in Sodom had been wrought the miracles that have been wrought in thee, perhaps it had remained unto this day. But I say unto you, that it shall be more tolerable for the land of Sodom in the day of judgment, than for thee. At that time Jesus answered and said: I confess to thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to the little ones. (Mt. 11: 21-25)

Miracles wrought by Our Divine Redeemer were recorded by Saint Matthew in his Gospel, including two accounts the multiplication loaves and fishes, the first feeding five thousand men and the second feeding four thousand men, miracles that were deconstructed by Father Raniero Cantalamessa, O.F.M., Cap., the preacher to the "papal" household, three years ago when he said that Our Lord had inspired the crowd to share what they had brought with him. There is, of course, not a shred of Patristic support for this blasphemous denial of the plain meaning of these words:

And he coming forth saw a great multitude, and had compassion on them, and healed their sick. And when it was evening, his disciples came to him, saying: This is a desert place, and the hour is now past: send away the multitudes, that going into the towns, they may buy themselves victuals.

But Jesus said to them, They have no need to go: give you them to eat. They answered him: We have not here, but five loaves, and two fishes. He said to them: Bring them hither to me. And when he had commanded the multitudes to sit down upon the grass, he took the five loaves and the two fishes, and looking up to heaven, he blessed, and brake, and gave the loaves to his disciples, and the disciples to the multitudes. And they did all eat, and were filled. And they took up what remained, twelve full baskets of fragments. And the number of them that did eat, was five thousand men, besides women and children. (Mt. 14: 14-21)

Here is the second account of such a miracle, a prefiguring of the Eucharist, in Saint Matthew's Gospel:

So that the multitudes marvelled seeing the dumb speak, the lame walk, and the blind see: and they glorified the God of Israel. And Jesus called together his disciples, and said: I have compassion on the multitudes, because they continue with me now three days, and have not what to eat, and I will not send them away fasting, lest they faint in the way. And the disciples say unto him: Whence then should we have so many loaves in the desert, as to fill so great a multitude? And Jesus said to them: How many loaves have you? But they said: Seven, and a few little fishes. And he commanded the multitude to sit down upon the ground.

And taking the seven loaves and the fishes, and giving thanks, he brake, and gave to his disciples, and the disciples to the people. And they did all eat, and had their fill. And they took up seven baskets full, of what remained of the fragments. And they that did eat, were four thousand men, beside children and women. And having dismissed the multitude, he went up into a boat, and came into the coasts of Magedan.  (Mt. 15: 31-39)

Chapter 16 of Saint Matthew's Gospel contains the wonderful passage describing the selection of Saint Peter to be the visible head of the true Church on earth. The Orthodox have been deconstructing the passage below for over a thousand years. Protestants have been doing so for half of a millennium. Giovanni Battista Enrico Antonio Maria/ Montini/Paul VI, Karol Wojtyla/John Paul II, Joseph Ratzinger/Benedict XVI and Jorge Mario Bergoglio have been willing to "finesse" its plain meaning so as to accommodate both the Orthodox and the Protestants. The passage is clear, however: the Church founded by Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church, is founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope:

And Jesus came into the quarters of Cesarea Philippi: and he asked his disciples, saying: Whom do men say that the Son of man is? But they said: Some John the Baptist, and other some Elias, and others Jeremias, or one of the prophets. Jesus saith to them: But whom do you say that I am?

Simon Peter answered and said: Thou art Christ, the Son of the living God. And Jesus answering, said to him: Blessed art thou, Simon Bar-Jona: because flesh and blood hath not revealed it to thee, but my Father who is in heaven. And I say to thee: That thou art Peter; and upon this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it. And I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven. And whatsoever thou shalt bind upon earth, it shall be bound also in heaven: and whatsoever thou shalt loose upon earth, it shall be loosed also in heaven. Then he commanded his disciples, that they should tell no one that he was Jesus the Christ.  (Mt. 16: 14-20)

Saint Matthew includes his account of the Transfiguration and also provides one of the Scriptural proofs that the Church has used for Purgatory from time immemorial:

Then came Peter unto him and said: Lord, how often shall my brother offend against me, and I forgive him? till seven times? Jesus saith to him: I say not to thee, till seven times; but till seventy times seven times. Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened to a king, who would take an account of his servants. And when he had begun to take the account, one was brought to him, that owed him ten thousand talents. And as he had not wherewith to pay it, his lord commanded that he should be sold, and his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made.

But that servant falling down, besought him, saying: Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And the lord of that servant being moved with pity, let him go and forgave him the debt. But when that servant was gone out, he found one of his fellow servants that owed him an hundred pence: and laying hold of him, throttled him, saying: Pay what thou owest. And his fellow servant falling down, besought him, saying: Have patience with me, and I will pay thee all. And he would not: but went and cast him into prison, till he paid the debt.

Now his fellow servants seeing what was done, were very much grieved, and they came and told their lord all that was done. Then his lord called him; and said to him: Thou wicked servant, I forgave thee all the debt, because thou besoughtest me: Shouldst not thou then have had compassion also on thy fellow servant, even as I had compassion on thee? And his lord being angry, delivered him to the torturers until he paid all the debt. So also shall my heavenly Father do to you, if you forgive not every one his brother from your hearts. (Mt. 18: 21-35)

Yes, we must forgive those who sin against without any limit whatsoever. There is nothing that anyone says about us or does to us that is the equal of what one of our least Venial Sins caused Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ to suffer in His Passion and Death and that caused those Seven Swords of Sorrow to be plunged through and through the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of His Most Blessed Mother. Indeed, if we are truly honest with ourselves, as most of us are not most of the time (!), we might realize that our sins deserve far, far worse than what we are actually permitted to suffer in this mortal vale of tears. And what we are called to suffer in this life is our passageway to eternity, being thus given numerous opportunities to help make reparation for our sins by offering up all of our sufferings to God through Our Lady's Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart. Even though a soul may die in a state of Sanctifying Grace, you see, it still owes a debt for each forgiven Mortal Sin and for each Venial Sin (and its general attachment to sin) after death if it has not paid back that debt by the embrace of suffering during life. Purgatory is thus proved by this passage from Saint Matthew's Gospel.

Another difficult passage for the Orthodox and the Protestants, as well for "Pope Francis" and most of his "bishops" and so-called "theological experts, involves the plain words of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ recorded by Saint Matthew concerning the indissolubility of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, that no power on earth can dissolve a sacramentally valid, ratified and consummated marriage:

And it came to pass when Jesus had ended these words, he departed from Galilee, and came into the coasts of Judea, beyond Jordan. And great multitudes followed him: and he healed them there. And there came to him the Pharisees tempting him, and saying: Is it lawful for a man to put away his wife for every cause? Who answering, said to them: Have ye not read, that he who made man from the beginning, Made them male and female? And he said: For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they two shall be in one flesh.

Therefore now they are not two, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let no man put asunder. They say to him: Why then did Moses command to give a bill of divorce, and to put away? He saith to them: Because Moses by reason of the hardness of your heart permitted you to put away your wives: but from the beginning it was not so. And I say to you, that whosoever shall put away his wife, except it be for fornication, and shall marry another, committeth adultery: and he that shall marry her that is put away, committeth adultery. (Mt. 19: 1-9)

This is but another passage that the lords of conciliarism are about to reinvent in the name of a false concept of "mercy" that damns both them and those whose sinful lives they seek to reaffirm, enable and celebrate. Next month's "synod of bishops" may even produce a "schism" within the counterfeit church of conciliarism over this matter, something that is ironic in that the very men who seek to defend the Sixth and Ninth Commandments continue to offend God by means of violating the First and Second Commandments by engaging in "inter-religious prayer services" and praising the beliefs of false religions, including those, such as Talmudism and Mohammedanism, that deny the Sacred Divinity of Our Lord Himself.

Saint Matthew also records the words of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ concerning the fact that we must keep watch for His "coming" at all times, meaning not only His Second Coming in glory at the end of time but His coming for us at the moment of our Particular Judgments, which most of us, not being mystics given to know this information (Saint Hyacinth, for example, was given to know the exact date upon which he would die, on the Feast of the Assumption of Our Lady into Heaven when he was seventy-two years of age), do not know and must be thoroughly prepared to encounter:

But of that day and hour no one knoweth, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone. And as in the days of Noe, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days before the flood, they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, even till that day in which Noe entered into the ark, And they knew not till the flood came, and took them all away; so also shall the coming of the Son of man be. Then two shall be in the field: one shall be taken, and one shall be left. (Mt. 24: 36-40)

Those who doubt the eternity of Hell, such as the late Hans Urs von Balthasar, one of the now-retired Joseph Alois Ratzinger/Benedict XVI's chief mentors, have to twist and turn and do all sorts of intellectual contentions, which come from Hell, by the way, to deny these plain words about the Last Judgment that Saint Matthew recorded for us under the inspiration of God the Holy Ghost:

And when the Son of man shall come in his majesty, and all the angels with him, then shall he sit upon the seat of his majesty. And all nations shall be gathered together before him, and he shall separate them one from another, as the shepherd separateth the sheep from the goats: And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on his left. Then shall the king say to them that shall be on his right hand: Come, ye blessed of my Father, possess you the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was hungry, and you gave me to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave me to drink; I was a stranger, and you took me in:

Naked, and you covered me: sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me. Then shall the just answer him, saying: Lord, when did we see thee hungry, and fed thee; thirsty, and gave thee drink? And when did we see thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and covered thee? Or when did we see thee sick or in prison, and came to thee? And the king answering, shall say to them: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it to one of these my least brethren, you did it to me.

Then he shall say to them also that shall be on his left hand: Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire which was prepared for the devil and his angels. For I was hungry, and you gave me not to eat: I was thirsty, and you gave me not to drink. I was a stranger, and you took me not in: naked, and you covered me not: sick and in prison, and you did not visit me. Then they also shall answer him, saying: Lord, when did we see thee hungry, or thirsty, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister to thee? Then he shall answer them, saying: Amen I say to you, as long as you did it not to one of these least, neither did you do it to me. And these shall go into everlasting punishment: but the just, into life everlasting. (Mt. 25: 31-36)

Ah yes, "everlasting punishment." And Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ mentions that it is important to give food and drink to those who are hungry and thirsty, referring to both spiritual nourishment for the soul and physical food and drink for the body. We serve Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself when we serve the spiritual and temporal needs of others, when we perform, that is, the Spiritual and Corporal Works of Mercy.

Finally, Saint Matthew provides us with the very words that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ spoke to the Eleven before He Ascended to the Father's right hand in glory forty days after His Resurrection on Easter Sunday:

And the eleven disciples went into Galilee, unto the mountain where Jesus had appointed them. And seeing them they adored: but some doubted. And Jesus coming, spoke to them, saying: All power is given to me in heaven and in earth. Going therefore, teach ye all nations; baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and behold I am with you all days, even to the consummation of the world.  (Mt. 28: 16-20)

As noted earlier, Saint Matthew took this quite seriously, setting out after Pentecost Sunday to seek with urgency the conversion of his own people and those of other regions to whom he was sent by God the Holy Ghost. The mission that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ gave to the Apostles as recorded in Saint Matthew's Gospel is as applicable today as it was nearly two millennia ago when He spoke the words before He Ascension into Heaven. These words are binding on all Catholics until Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ's Second Coming in glory at the end of time.

There was never a time in the history of the Catholic Church prior to the false "pontificate" of Angelo Roncalli/John XXIII that any true pope sought to discourage conversions to the Catholic Church, thereby indicating, either implicitly or explicitly, that individuals are absolutely safe unto eternity in all manner of false religions, that is is a "sin" against the heresy of "religious liberty" to engage in the sort of "proselytism" that characterized the entire work of the Church from her birth on Pentecost Sunday to the death of Pope Pius XII on October 9, 1958. This demonstrates that the conciliar church is a counterfeit church that has a mission from the devil to deconstruct the plain meaning of Sacred Scripture and of Apostolic (or Sacred) Tradition in order to accommodate itself to the "needs" of the "modern" world. The apostasy of ecumenism, including "inter-religious prayer meetings," for example, violates the command that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ gave to the Apostles as it also violates the First Commandment and reaffirms souls in false religion as it gives scandal to Catholics.

Consider this telling passage from Pope Saint Pius X's Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907:

They exercise all their ingenuity in an effort to weaken the force and falsify the character of tradition, so as to rob it of all its weight and authority. But for Catholics nothing will remove the authority of the second Council of Nicea, where it condemns those "who dare, after the impious fashion of heretics, to deride the ecclesiastical traditions, to invent novelties of some kind...or endeavor by malice or craft to overthrow any one of the legitimate traditions of the Catholic Church"; nor that of the declaration of the fourth Council of Constantinople: "We therefore profess to preserve and guard the rules bequeathed to the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church, by the Holy and most illustrious Apostles, by the orthodox Councils, both general and local, and by everyone of those divine interpreters, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church." Wherefore the Roman Pontiffs, Pius IV and Pius IX, ordered the insertion in the profession of faith of the following declaration: "I most firmly admit and embrace the apostolic and ecclesiastical traditions and other observances and constitutions of the Church.''

The Modernists pass judgment on the holy Fathers of the Church even as they do upon tradition. With consummate temerity they assure the public that the Fathers, while personally most worthy of all veneration, were entirely ignorant of history and criticism, for which they are only excusable on account of the time in which they lived. Finally, the Modernists try in every way to diminish and weaken the authority of the ecclesiastical magisterium itself by sacrilegiously falsifying its origin, character, and rights, and by freely repeating the calumnies of its adversaries. To the entire band of Modernists may be applied those words which Our predecessor sorrowfully wrote: "To bring contempt and odium on the mystic Spouse of Christ, who is the true light, the children of darkness have been wont to cast in her face before the world a stupid calumny, and perverting the meaning and force of things and words, to depict her as the friend of darkness and ignorance, and the enemy of light, science, and progress.'' This being so, Venerable Brethren, there is little reason to wonder that the Modernists vent all their bitterness and hatred on Catholics who zealously fight the battles of the Church. There is no species of insult which they do not heap upon them, but their usual course is to charge them with ignorance or obstinacy. When an adversary rises up against them with an erudition and force that renders them redoubtable, they seek to make a conspiracy of silence around him to nullify the effects of his attack. This policy towards Catholics is the more invidious in that they belaud with admiration which knows no bounds the writers who range themselves on their side, hailing their works, exuding novelty in every page, with a chorus of applause. For them the scholarship of a writer is in direct proportion to the recklessness of his attacks on antiquity, and of his efforts to undermine tradition and the ecclesiastical magisterium. (Pope Saint Pius X, Pascendi Dominci Gregis, September 8, 1907.)

It is not only the Fathers who are subject to the contempt of the Modernists, including Jorge Mario Bergoglio. The words of Sacred Scripture must be deconstructed of their plain meaning by the use of the "historical-critical" method of Biblical "scholarship," thus making the Gospel of Saint Matthew, for instance, the plaything of the individual exegete. There is, of course, another word for this: Protestantism, which was founded in the belief that the Magisterium of the Catholic Church was an unreliable guide for the interpretation of Scripture.

Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B.’s hagiography of our Saint provides us with a ready source of reflection and inspiration:

The book of the generation of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the son of Abraham. The Eagle and the Lion have already risen in the heavens of the holy Liturgy; today we salute the Man; and next month the Ox will appear, to complete the number of the four living creatures who draw the chariot of God through the world and surround his throne in heaven. These mysterious beings, with their six seraph-wings, are ever gazing with their innumerable eyes upon the Lamb who stands upon the throne as it were slain; and they rest not day and night, saying: Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, who was, and who is, and who is to come. St. John beheld them giving to the elect the signal to praise their Creator and Redeemer; and when all created beings in heaven, on earth, and under the earth, have adoringly proclaimed that the Lamb, who was slain, is worthy of power and divinity and glory and empire forever, it is they that add to the world’s homage the seal of their testimony, saying: Amen, so it is!

Great and singular, then, is the glory of the Evangelists. The name of Matthew signifies one who is given. He gave himself when, at the word of Jesus “follow me,” he rose up and followed him; but far greater was the gift he received from God in return. The Most High, who looks down from heaven upon the low things of earth, loves to choose the humble for the princes of his people. Levi, occupied in a profession that was hated by the Jews and despised by the Gentiles, belonged to the lowest rank of society; but still more humble was he in heart when, laying aside the delicate reserve shown in his regard by the other Evangelists, he openly placed his former ignominious title beside the glorious one of Apostle. By so doing, he published the magnificent mercy of him who had come to heal the sick not the healthy, and to call not the just but sinners. For thus exalting the abundance of God’s grace, he merited its superabundance: Matthew was called to be the first Evangelist. Under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost he wrote, with that inimitable simplicity which speaks straight to the heart, the Gospel of the Messias expected by Israel, and announced by the prophets—of the Messias the teach and Savior of his people, the descendant of its kings, and himself the King of the daughter of Sion—of the Messias who had come not to destroy the Law, but to bring it to its full completion in an everlasting, universal covenant.

In his simple-hearted gratitude, Levi made a feast for his divine Benefactor. It was at this banquet that Jesus, defending his disciple as well as himself, replied to those who pretended to be scandalized: Can the children of the Bridegroom mourn, as long as the Bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, when the Bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then they shall fast. Clement of Alexandria bears witness to the Apostle’s subsequent austerity; assuring us that he lived o nnothing but vegetables and wild fruits. The legend will tell us moreover of his zeal for the Master who had so sweetly touched his heart, and of his fidelity in preserving for him souls inebriated with the wine springing forth virgins. This fidelity, indeed, cost him his life: his martyrdom was in defense and confirmation of the duties and rights of holy virginity. To the end of time the Church in consecrating her virgins will make use of the beautiful blessing pronounced by him over the Ethiopian princess, which the blood of the Apostle and Evangelist has imbued with a peculiar virtue (Pontificale Romanum, De Benedictione et Consecratione Virginum: “Deus, plasmator corporum, afflator animarum.”). (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint Matthew the Apostle, September 21.)

In these days of apostasy and betrayal, we must turn to the words of Sacred Scripture, including the words of Saint Matthew's Gospel, to have our sensus Catholicus reinforced. Remember that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ prophesied that we would be opposed by those within our very household, which means not only our own families but also the household of the Church herself:

The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall put them to death. And you shall be hated by all men for my name's sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another. Amen I say to you, you shall not finish all the cities of Israel, till the Son of man come. The disciple is not above the master, nor the servant above his lord. It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the goodman of the house Beelzebub, how much more them of his household?

Therefore fear them not. For nothing is covered that shall not be revealed: nor hid, that shall not be known. That which I tell you in the dark, speak ye in the light: and that which you hear in the ear, preach ye upon the housetops. And fear ye not them that kill the body, and are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him that can destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and not one of them shall fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered.

Fear not therefore: better are you than many sparrows. Every one therefore that shall confess me before men, I will also confess him before my Father who is in heaven. But he that shall deny me before men, I will also deny him before my Father who is in heaven. Do not think that I came to send peace upon earth: I came not to send peace, but the sword. For I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

And as a man's enemies shall be they of his own household. He that loveth father or mother more than me, is not worthy of me; and he that loveth son or daughter more than me, is not worthy of me. And he that taketh not up his cross, and followeth me, is not worthy of me. He that findeth his life, shall lose it: and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it. He that receiveth you, receiveth me: and he that receiveth me, receiveth him that sent me.  (Mt. 10: 21-40)

In these days when the Modernists have traditional Catholics of all stripes in each of the warring camps shooting at each in a manner that rivals the sectarian warfare within Syria and Iraq at present, may these words of Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ recorded in Saint Matthew's Gospel help us to focus on defending the truths of the Faith against their deconstruction and denial by clever men who cleave to the revolutionary formulas of conciliarism. The cleverness of the conciliarists comes from the devil and it leads to Hell. May Saint Matthew inspire us to be willing to die, both figuratively and literally, for our insistence on absolute fidelity to the totality of the Deposit of Faith, both in Sacred Scripture and in Apostolic Tradition, so that we can be, with him, a collector souls for the true Church that Our Blessed Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ founded upon the Rock of Peter, the Pope.

Dom Prosper Gueranger’s prayer to Saint Matthew is a fitting way to remember that we are the beneficiaries of that which the Jews of Our Lord’s today rejected, the Gospel of Saint Matthew:

How pleasing must thy humility have been to our Lord; that humility which has raised thee so high in the kingdom of heaven, and which made thee, on earth, the confidant of Incarnate Wisdom. The Son of God, who hides his secrets from the wise and prudent and reveals them to little ones, renovated thy soul by intimacy with himself and filled it with the new wine of his heavenly doctrine. So fully didst thou understand his love that he chose thee to be the first historian of his life on earth. The Man-God revealed himself through thee to the Church. She has inherited thy glorious teaching as she calls it in her Secret; for the Synagogue refused to understand both the Divine Master and the Prophets his heralds.

There is one teaching, indeed, which not all, even of the elect, can understand and receive; just as in heaven not all follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth, nor can all sing the new canticle reserved to those whose love here on earth has been undivided. O Evangelist of holy virginity, and martyr for its sake! watch over the choicest portion of our Lord’s flock. Remember also, O Levi, all those for whom, as thou tellest us, the Emmanuel received his beautiful name of Savior. The whole redeemed world honors thee and implores thy assistance. Thou hast recorded for us the admirable Sermon on the mountain: by the path of virtue there traced out, lead us to that kingdom of heaven, which is the ever-recurring theme of thy inspired writing. (Dom Prosper Gueranger, O.S.B., The Liturgical Year, Feast of Saint Matthew the Apostle, September 21.)

With total confidence in Our Lady to guide us as we keep close to her through her Most Holy Rosary and fulfill her Fatima Message in our own daily lives as the consecrated slaves of her Divine Son through her own Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart, we know that there will be a day, perhaps not in our lifetimes, when simple Catholic sanity will prevail as the Church Militant on earth is restored and as Christendom is established once again after the "bastions of Modernity and Modernism" are razed and become part of the dust bin of history.

Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us.

Viva Cristo Rey! Vivat Christus Rex!

Saint Joseph, pray for us.

Saint Matthew the Apostle, pray for us.

Saints Caspar, Melchior, and Balthazar, pray for us.