Word to the Wise
Tuesday, June 11, 2013 - Tuesday in the 10th Week in Ordinary Time
[Acts 11:21b-26; 13:1-3 and Matt 5:13-16]When [Barnabas] 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.
JUNE 11, 2013 ST. BARNABAS, apostle
Not long ago, I believe it was on the feast of St. Matthias the apostle, I was gently corrected by a friend who is a great scripture scholar (a former student parishioner and a Jesuit, to boot!) when I said that Jesus had only TWELVE apostles! He pointed to St. Paul and St. Barnabas as being considered by the church to be "apostles!" For some reason, however, the liturgical calendar gives the feast of St. Barnabas a lesser status than the other "thirteen." It seems to me that the line from the first scripture today gives him all the qualities a good apostle needs! He was 'sent' by the church in Jerusalem to Antioch; he was a "good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith; and he encouraged the community to remain faithful!
Come to think of it, those qualities are what we should look for in any of our church ministers! They seem to describe our new pope, Francis, pretty well. One can hope that these criteria could be more widely used on many levels! I do meet in my itinerant preaching ministry many wonderful men and women who would make great "apostles!" AMEN