Wednesday, September 24, 2014

St.Mattew's 2nd Reading

We didn't celebrate the feast of St. Matthew the Apostle this year because September 21st fell on a Sunday this year. Sundays supersede most feasts. I'm sure St. Matthew does not mind. But as I was paging around in my breviary today,my eyes fell on Matthew's second reading, from St. Bede the Venerable:

"[Jesus] saw the tax collector and, because he saw him through the eyes of mercy and chose him..."

And I remembered that Pope Francis' personal motto, both  when he was a bishop and now as pope, is miserando atque eligendo, which everyone has trouble translation from Latin, but means something  like "having mercy and choosing,"   This is the passage the Pope's motto comes from.  It was on the feast of St. Matthew many years ago that young Mario Bergoglio received his vocation to the priesthood.

Anyway, it was cool to come across this passage in the Office of readings and remember the  special  connection that it has to our pope.