by Sr. Sheila Devane MMM                                         Ireland                        24.05.2025

Scripture scholars are divided in their opinions as to whether Matthew, the tax collector, and Matthew, the evangelist, are one and the same person. In Tanzania we, MMMs, and a whole host of other members of the Christian faithful, especially the expatriate missionaries, were very devoted to Matthew, the tax collector. He was invoked on a regular basis and in all sorts of special emergency situations. Let me tell you about the origin and manner of our earnest prayers to this good man.

Our one retreat centre for many years was in a scenic place high up in the slopes of Mt. Kilimanjaro and run by the Benedictine Sisters of St. Killian. The founding sisters were Austrian, so they spoke German, a Germanic version of English, some Swahili and a little of one of the Chagga dialects. Mother Hildegard was a force of nature, small, rotund, with boundless energy, huge charisma, a great love of the people and with masterful administrative skills. She usually talked in a mixture of two if not three languages in the same sentence and was a combination of spiritual directress, organic farmer, strategic manager, and feisty contemplative nun, known far and wide.

As non-Tanzanians we were all annual visitors to the immigration office locally, and sometimes as far as Dar es Salaam, to renew our visas, and indeed many of us had far more visits to revenue and immigration than we wished for, as we tried to import a whole variety of items big, middle, and small to enable our various ministries. It wasn’t always easy as it never is for anyone anywhere in the world with immigration officialdom.

This is where Mother Hildegard’s spiritual advice was at its very best: on hearing of any imminent immigration visits or taxation matters, she immediately, there and then, would invoke the assistance of St. Matthew while loudly talking of his career as a tax collector, his inner knowledge of the often-devious workings of such a job and deeply believing that prayer could penetrate the hardest-hearted immigration officer. Her prayer was more one of ordering and instructing rather than petitioning. But it worked – real life miracles! So, we prayed to St. Matthew and, as MMMs, we also held the trump card on many such visits by having had a relative of at least one member of the immigration staff in our hospitals at some time or other. All good!

In December one year a group of us arrived in Rombo for our annual retreat; it was the rainy season and the rains that year were heavy; the countryside was magnificent. Mother Hildegard was unusually in bed the day we arrived and fearing she was ill we enquired to be told she was resting after a particularly challenging, but ultimately successful, experience. Knowing her it could have been just about anything under the sun!

A pious, very old, European lay woman who worked in the colonial government had died and requested in her legal will to be buried in that convent. The Sisters, knowing her quite well, agreed to this and held a simple, religious funeral service. Back in headquarters in Dar es Salaam there was upset. She was, after all, a member of government, burials are important and there was a desire, indeed a command to Rombo that the body be exhumed and brought to the capital for burial. Can you imagine the prayers to St. Matthew and the commotion as senior members of the government set out on their safari up the mountain to the convent to retrieve the body?

Mother Hildegard and the sisters were very conflicted as the late Marguerite had requested a Catholic grave among them and now she was about to be hiked off to a secular cemetery in Dar. But St. Matthew was summoned to task: the rains returned in force, the roads up the mountain virtually disappeared and the combination of torrential rain, raging storms, mud -sliding and sheer terror forced the government re-burial team to call off their efforts halfway up the mountain and to return to Dar, leaving the dead woman in her private grave among the Sisters. They never went back for the body.

Every time I need a parking space, and whenever I go to fill out an official form, I pray to St. Matthew, and I often hear Mother Hildegard’s voice ringing in my ears. May they pray for us.