Week 25 of Ordinary Time

Feast of Saint Matthew, Apostle and Evangelist

Monday, September 21, 2026

Today’s verse

About today

Matthew was sitting at the tax booth when Jesus said, “Follow me.” He rose and followed, and the Church received a Gospel that begins with a genealogy of mercy: sinners and foreigners in the line of the Messiah. His feast is 21 September, a tax collector set among the apostles. Ask today for the grace to leave the table where we count our own, and to write with our lives the good news that Christ came not to call the righteous, but sinners.

Original – Prayer on Fire.

Today’s first reading is from the New Testament.

First reading

Mass – First Reading

Ephesians 4:1–7, 11–13

So, as a prisoner in the Lord, I beg you to walk in a manner worthy of the vocation to which you have been called: with all humility and meekness, with patience, supporting one another in charity. Be anxious to preserve the unity of the Spirit within the bonds of peace. One body and one Spirit: to this you have been called by the one hope of your calling: one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all, and through all, and in us all. Yet to each one of us there has been given grace according to the measure allotted by Christ. And the same one granted that some would be Apostles, and some Prophets, yet truly others evangelists, and others pastors and teachers, for the sake of the perfection of the saints, by the work of the ministry, in the edification of the body of Christ, until we all meet in the unity of faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God, as a perfect man, in the measure of the age of the fullness of Christ.

Text: Catholic Public Domain Version (CPDV) · Mass – First Reading

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