Leaning In: Devotion for January 19

St. Matthew and the Angel is one of Caravaggio’s most fascinating—and controversial—religious paintings. Caravaggio painted it in 1602 for a chapel in the church of San Luigi dei Francesi in Rome. The church was commissioning a series of paintings about St. Matthew, and Caravaggio was asked to paint three scenes: Matthew’s calling, his martyrdom, and Matthew writing his Gospel. This painting was meant to show the moment when Matthew receives divine inspiration.

What most people don’t realize is that there were two versions of this painting. The first version, now lost (it was destroyed in World War II), shocked and offended the church officials. In that original painting, Matthew looked too ordinary, too rough, even crude. His feet were dirty and bare. His posture was awkward. He looked like an uneducated old man struggling to write, while the angel almost physically guided his hand, as if Matthew didn’t know what he was doing.

Church leaders rejected it because it seemed to suggest that Matthew was ignorant, not dignified enough to be an apostle. They felt it lacked the reverence they expected in sacred art. Caravaggio was furious—but he painted a second version, the version we have today. In it, Matthew is still very human, but more dignified. He sits with a book on his lap, pen poised, while the angel floats beside him, counting on its fingers. The angel is not forcing Matthew’s hand this time, but guiding his memory and his thinking.

Yet Caravaggio kept his deeper message: God works through ordinary people, not polished saints. He gives us a deeply comforting picture of how scripture is born: not from perfect people, but from people who are listening.

Matthew, a former tax collector, knew what it meant to be labeled a sinner, an outsider, someone who did not belong. Yet here he is, chosen to tell the story of Jesus. He is not writing because he is worthy. He is writing because he is called.

So often we imagine that God only speaks clearly to the confident, spiritually strong people who have everything figured out. But Caravaggio paints something different: a God who leans toward the hesitant, the unsure, the ones who keep having to look back at the angel and ask, “Did I get that right?”

And the angel does not shout. It does not force Matthew’s hand. It simply stays close, patiently guiding. That is how God often works with us too—not with thunder, but with quiet persistence. This is especially important when life feels heavy or unclear. When prayers feel awkward. When the future seems hard to read. We are tempted to believe that our uncertainty disqualifies us. But in this painting, uncertainty is exactly where revelation happens. God meets Matthew in the middle of the struggle to write. God meets us in the middle of the struggle to believe.

So maybe faith is not about getting everything right. Maybe faith is about staying close enough to hear God’s voice when it speaks.

Featured art: Caravaggio, St. Matthew and the Angel, 1602, San Luigi dei Francesi, Rome