He recalled that Matthew, as a tax collector for the Roman empire, would have been viewed by others as a “publican” and a traitor to the people.
“But in the eyes of Jesus, Matthew is a man, with both his miseries and his greatness,” he said.
Jesus, Francis emphasized, does not see someone as the “adjectives” which are used to describe him or her, but as a person.
“We can ask ourselves: how do we look upon others? How often do we see their faults and not their needs; how often do we label people by what they do or think,” he said. “Even as Christians we say to ourselves: is he one of us or not? This is not the gaze of Jesus: He always looks at each person with mercy, actually, with predilection.”
“And Christians,” Pope Francis said, “are called to do as Christ did, looking like him, especially at the so-called ‘distant ones.’ Indeed, Matthew’s account of the call ends with Jesus saying, ‘I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.’”
Hannah Brockhaus is Catholic News Agency’s senior Rome correspondent. She grew up in Omaha, Nebraska, and has a degree in English from Truman State University in Missouri.
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