Memorial of Saint Barnabas, Apostle

Lectionary: 580/360​

 

The news about them reached the ears of the Church in Jerusalem,

and they sent Barnabas to go to Antioch.

When he arrived and saw the grace of God,

he rejoiced and encouraged them all

to remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart,

for he was a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.

The New Testament scriptures don't often pause very long to tell us something directly about anyone. Saint Joseph was "a just man" What more need be said? Mary was a virgin; Saints Peter and Andrew were fishermen; Matthew was a tax collector. That doesn't tell us much about their character. Knowing what happened during that dreadful weekend in Jerusalem, perhaps the evangelists preferred to say little about that. And, unfortunately, Saint Paul first appears as one approving of the murder of Stephen. 

So we can attach significance to Luke's unhesitating description of Barnabas, "a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith." Again, what more need be said? If they put that on my tombstone I'd think they were being too kind. 

In our time when fads, styles, movements and ideologies sweep back and forth among millions of people, when faceless influence peddlers dictate how and what we should think, the Church celebrates the apostolic generation of men and women who kept the faith and were filled with the Spirit of Jesus. They were not then, and are not now, unknown.

Sometimes people might have been too attached to certain missionaries, and that can be a problem. You'll remember Saint Paul's complaint to the Corinthians: 

For it has been reported to me about you, my brothers, by Chloe’s people, that there are rivalries among you. I mean that each of you is saying, “I belong to Paul,” or “I belong to Apollos,” or “I belong to Cephas,” or “I belong to Christ.” Is Christ divided? Was Paul crucified for you? Or were you baptized in the name of Paul? I give thanks [to God] that I baptized none of you except Crispus and Gaius, so that no one can say you were baptized in my name. (I baptized the household of Stephanas also; beyond that I do not know whether I baptized anyone else.)

But, in the long run, our communion honors the men and women in our lives who were good people, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith. 

That, by the way, is supposed to be the purpose of godparents and confirmation sponsors. The former might step in when parents cannot fulfill their duties as first teachers of the faith; the latter may be like mentors as maturing adults often need more guidance than their parents can provide. 

In any case, our community is never a faceless, amorphous group. We are drawn to the Lord, at least in part, by the admiration we have for our elders in religion, and by mutual support when our faith is challenged. 

We celebrate the apostolic generation because they listened to the spirit and kept the faith as the whole world tried to reinterpret the gospel in a more familiar, less challenging way. They did not buckle even at the cost of their lives.