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This year, we are reading through all four Gospels.

Join us as we invite God to plant seeds of faith in our lives through His Holy Word.

Hey there, Sprouts.

Welcome back to the Catholic Sprouts podcast. This year, we are journeying through the Gospels.

We are officially on day one, but we will not be reading from the gospel quite yet.

This week we will be learning about the gospel of Matthew and the important themes to listen for as we begin reading next week.

As a reminder, make sure that you have printed your gospel in a year notebook.

It will let you know what to expect what we will be reading on each episode, and also will give you a place to take notes.

When we start reading the gospel next week, we'll be reading from the New American Revised Edition.

Now, join me in prayer before we dive into some background on the gospel of Matthew.

In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, amen.

Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful and kindle in them the fire of your love.

Send forth your spirit and they shall be created and you will renew the face of the earth. Amen. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy

Spirit, amen. So we will be reading through all four Gospels in the order that they appear in the Bible.

So that means that we are starting with the Gospel of Matthew.

Today we are going to talk about the author of this gospel.

Of course, his name was Matthew.

All Bible scholars, starting from the early church up until now, agree that

the author of the Gospel of Matthew is Matthew the Apostle. Now, he was a tax collector before Jesus

called to him and Matthew stood, left everything behind, and followed Jesus.

At the time of Jesus, tax collectors were hated and despised by Jews because tax collectors

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