If you are a banker or an accountant, rejoice, here is a patron saint for you; Saint Matthew! Even though he is the disciple of Christ, the Catholic Church has given him the reputation of the patron of bankers, accountants, and financial professionals in general — all useful individuals who help us manage our money. While we can assume that Matthew had a good head for figures, his actual career was far from blameless.
Matthew was very famous for his work for the Romans as a tax collector. No one likes taxes, but anti-tax-collector animosity was especially intense in ancient Israel during the first century of the Christian era. In the Gospels tax collectors (also known as publicans) are frequently mentioned in the same breath as harlots.
Matthew also called Levi in the Gospels of St. Mark and St. Luke, collected taxes in Capernaum. Jesus called him while he was sitting at his table in the customs house, shaking down his neighbors, when Jesus Christ walked by. After healing a paralyzed man, he turned to Matthew to reconcile a sinner. “Follow me,” Christ said. To the surprise of the Roman guards, the clerks, and the taxpayers, Matthew got up, left the money where it lay on the table, turned his back on a life of government-sanctioned larceny, and joined the handful of men we know as the Twelve Apostles.