The Feast of St. Barnabas, Thursday, June 11, 2020

Acts 11:21b-26; 13:1-3

In those days a great number who believed turned to the Lord. 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. And a large number of people was added to the Lord. Then he went to Tarsus to look for Saul, and when he had found him he brought him to Antioch. For a whole year they met with the Church and taught a large number of people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians. Now there were in the Church at Antioch prophets and teachers: Barnabas, Symeon who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who was a close friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul. While they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.” Then, completing their fasting and prayer, they laid hands on them and sent them off.

“He was a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.”  From Acts 4, 36-37, we learn that “Joseph, who, by the apostles, was surnamed Barnabas (which is, by interpretation, ‘the son of consolation’), a Levite, a Cyprian born, having land, sold it and brought the price and laid it at the feet of the Apostles.”  He seems to have been living in Judea at the time of his conversion.  He is said to be the “cousin” of St. Mark.  He spread the Gospel tirelessly throughout the region, working especially in Antioch, at the time the third most important city in the Roman Empire after Alexandria and Rome itself, and in his native Cyprus.  After he had already spent several years as a missionary, he began to work with St. Paul.  According to tradition, Paul appointed him bishop of Cyprus, and it was there that he was martyred while discoursing with the Jews in a synagogue.  We find many mentions of him in the Acts of the Apostles and in Paul’s letters.  The very early Father, Tertullian, held that Barnabas had in fact authored the Letter to the Hebrews.  The Church bestows the title of “Apostle” on Barnabas even though it does not seem that the man ever saw Jesus.  Yet, not having seen him, he believed the words of those who had, and left everything to preach the Gospel, even as they had.

We thank God for these early saints of whom we know just a little from the New Testament: Barnabas, Apollos, Stephen, “Symeon, who was called Niger, Lucius of Cyrene, Manaen who was a close friend of Herod the tetrarch”, Aquila and Priscilla, Onesimus the slave, Lydia the merchant, and so many others who knew of Jews and Gentiles, who knew of Jesus only through the preaching of the Apostles, and came to believe in him, even at the cost of their lives.