Our Holy Gospel for today says that "as Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office. And He said to him, ‘Follow Me.’ And he arose and followed Him." Now that’s what we call a response to a call don’t we? Jesus said: "Follow Me." Matthew got up and followed him. The problem with many of us is that we haven’t even gotten up yet, much less are we following Jesus.

Jesus Christ empowers us to come follow him, but we have to get up and start moving as Matthew did so many years ago. Matthew, by the way, means "Gift of God" in Hebrew. Strange when you think of it, that one with such a name would be a tax collector.

Tax collectors were hated by the Jews because these toll masters were seen as turncoats, mercenaries, if you will, who worked for Rome against th…