Homily for Thursday, 11 June 2015‒ Memorial of St. Barnabas

Thursday of the 10th Week in Ordinary Time

Readings of the day: Acts 11:21b-26, 13:1-3; Psalm 98:1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4, 5-6; Matthew 5:20-26

Who was St. Barnabas, whose feast we celebrate today? What made St. Barnabas the apostle, the effective teacher of our faith, and the trusted partner to St. Paul that he was?

Our Scriptures give us little information about St. Barnabas, but is the short description we hear in Acts, in our first reading today, of Barnabas not key to understanding something about who Barnabas was? St. Barnabas is described as “a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.”

Because St. Barnabas was “a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith,” the people he served, first in Antioch, gained confidence in him and his teaching. For the same reason, St. Barnabas was able to find Saul (later St. Paul) in Tarsus and bring him to Antioch to serve with him there. Because Barnabas was “a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith,” he was able to surround himself with an important cast of “prophets and teachers” to help him to evangelize and encourage the people in Antioch. For St. Barnabas, his work was not about him, but about Christ and his Gospel.

Can we not imagine St. Barnabas as a person who took to heart and practiced Jesus’ message of reconciliation of which we hear in today’s Gospel reading, from Matthew? If Barnabas ever became angry (we can imagine that he did), can we not imagine him seeking reconciliation with the people with whom he was angry? Jesus does not say in Matthew’s Gospel that anger itself is sinful. But if we put up barriers to reconciliation; if our anger leads to gossip; to labeling and demeaning those with whom we are angry, this Jesus says is sinful. Figuratively (and with some exaggeration for effect), this deliberate failure to seek reconciliation is what Jesus considers to be like murder.

But I imagine saints like Barnabas as examples of reconciliation; of patience; of kindness to their early Christian communities. Barnabas was “a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.” This is what made St. Barnabas an authentic Apostle of Christ in whom the people he served trusted.

To what extent is the same true of us? To what extent are we “good [people], filled with the Holy Spirit and faith”? We do not celebrate St. Barnabas and the many saints like him because they are unattainable ideals of what the lives of Christians could or should be. No, we celebrate St. Barnabas because, with God’s grace, we are all invited to be like him: “Good” and “filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.” We are all called to holiness; to show this holiness to the world by the way we live, in small ways, minute-by-minute; day-by-day. And we are called to seek mercy; reconciliation with God and one another for when we fail to meet this divine calling.

We can be (and many of us are) just like St. Barnabas in this way. Not all of us are apostles like St. Barnabas or great teachers, or prophets. Yet to the extent we live by kindness; forgiveness; reconciliation; patience; joy, the world will take notice. And our God will certainly recognize us as authentic people of Christ; people who are “good” and “filled with the Holy Spirit and with faith.”

Homily for Wednesday, 11 June 2014‒ Memorial of St. Barnabas

Wednesday of the 10th week in Ordinary Time
 
Readings of the day: Acts 11:21b-26; Psalm 98:1, 2-3ab, 3cd-4, 5-6; Matthew 5:17-19

What is the mission of an apostle of Christ, and how are we entrusted with this mission to be apostles of Christ? We may think of an apostle as one of the original Twelve in our Scriptures. Sometimes we may include people like Matthias, who filled the role of Judas Iscariot after Christ had ascended to heaven, and Sts. Paul and Barnabas in our list of apostles. Literally, the word “apostle” simply means “one who is sent.”

Today we celebrate the feast day of St. Barnabas, an apostle; the one chosen to assist St. Paul and the early Church at Antioch; one who was sent, as we hear in our first reading today from the Acts of the Apostles, from Jerusalem to a rapidly-growing Christian community in Antioch. What are some of the ways in which Acts describes the apostle St. Barnabas?

We hear that “he was a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.” These are vital qualities of an apostle of Christ; to be “filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.” Barnabas arrived in Antioch, where we hear that “he rejoiced and encouraged” the people of Antioch “to remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart.”

These are two more vital qualities of an apostle of Christ. How, then, do these words used to describe Barnabas relate to us? How are we, like Barnabas, called to be apostles of Christ?

We began this week with last Sunday’s celebration of Pentecost; of our receiving of the Holy Spirit into our Church; into the hearts of every one of us. Pentecost is our great reminder that we, like Barnabas and like every apostle; every teacher; every prophet; every baptized Christian, is “filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.”

Because we are all “filled with the Holy Spirit and faith” as Barnabas was, we are entrusted in a sense with the mission with which Barnabas was entrusted. We, like Barnabas and like every apostle, are sent to rejoice and to encourage one another. We are sent to take and to give out everywhere we go and to everyone whom we encounter this gift of the Holy Spirit that we have received. In this sense we are all apostles of Jesus Christ.

Let us also take to heart the last words of our Mass that we will hear in a few moments. We end our Mass with words of sending forth: “Go forth, the Mass is ended” or, “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord” or, “Go in peace, glorifying the Lord with your life,” or simply, “Go in peace.”

We have been filled with the Holy Spirit and faith and then we are sent out. “Go.” We have a mission given by our baptism; given in the very words of our Mass; given by the example of St. Barnabas. And so we have all the vital qualities of apostles of Christ.