St. Barnabas (2026)

By Fr. Conor Donnelly

(Proofread)

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

My Lord and my God, I firmly believe that you are here, that you see me, that you hear me. I adore you with profound reverence. I ask your pardon for my sins and grace to make this time of prayer fruitful. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

A native of Cyprus, Barnabas was one of the first believers in Jerusalem. It was he who presented St. Paul to the apostles after his conversion and accompanied him on his first apostolic journey. He took part in the Council of Jerusalem and was a figure of great importance in the church at Antioch, which was the first Christian nucleus of considerable size outside of Jerusalem. He was a relative of Mark, on whom he exercised a decisive influence. He returned to his native land, evangelized it, and died a martyr in or about the year 63. His name is mentioned in the first Eucharistic prayer.

From Barnabas, we can learn about the need for having a big heart in the apostolate. The word Barnabas means “son of consolation,” and was the name given by the apostles to Joseph, a Levite of a native of Cyprus, as we’re told in the Acts. St. John Chrysostom comments that this surname must have been inspired by his conciliatory spirit and his sympathetic manner. After the martyrdom of Stephen and the persecution that followed, some Christians went to Antioch, taking with them their faith in Jesus Christ. When word reached the apostles in Jerusalem about the wonders the Holy Spirit was working there, they sent Barnabas to Antioch. “When he came and saw the grace of God,” we’re told in the Acts, “he was glad; and he exhorted them all to remain faithful to the Lord with steadfast purpose; for he was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith” (Acts 11:23’24).

His zeal for extending the kingdom led him to look for instruments who would be capable of carrying out the enormous task that faced them. He went to Tarsus to look for Paul. And when he found him, he brought him to Antioch. The Acts says that for a whole year they met with the church and taught a large company of people. He had already detected in the new convert those qualities that, with the help of grace, would transform him into the apostle of the Gentiles.

It was Barnabas, we’re told in the Acts, who had presented Paul to the apostles in Jerusalem a short time before, when many Christians were still suspicious of their former persecutor. With the apostle, Barnabas set off on the first missionary journey, whose objective was the island of Cyprus, as we’re told in the Acts, chapter 13. They were accompanied by Mark, Barnabas’s cousin, who left them in Perga, halfway through the journey, and returned to Jerusalem.

When St. Paul was planning a second great missionary journey, Barnabas wanted to take Mark with them again. But Paul thought it better not to take him with them, one who had withdrawn from them in Pamphylia and had not gone with them to the work. This gave rise to a strong dissension between Paul and Barnabas, and that led to them separating one from another.

Barnabas did not afterwards want to leave out his cousin Mark, who was perhaps very young when his strength had failed him at the time of his initial desertion. Barnabas was able to encourage and strengthen Mark and make of him a great evangelist and a most effective collaborator of St. Peter and even of St. Paul, with whom Barnabas was to remain united. Later on, Paul was to express an opinion of the highest esteem for Mark, as though he saw in him a reflection of his sympathetic manner and recalled pleasant memories of Barnabas, the friend of his youth.

St. Barnabas invites us today to have a big heart in the apostolate, so that we will not become easily discouraged by the defects and the falling away of those friends or relatives of ours whom we want to take to Christ. We should not leave them out when they weaken, or perhaps do not respond to our efforts and prayers on their behalf. If sometimes they fail quite obviously, to correspond with our concern for them, this should only lead us to do all we can to treat our friends with still greater affection, with a more ready smile, and to make even greater use than we have done previously of the supernatural means.

We have to learn to understand people so as to be better able to help them. We’re told in the Gospel of St. Matthew, “Preach as you go, saying, ‘The kingdom of heaven is at hand.’ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse lepers, cast out demons” (Matt. 10:7’8). This is a command of Christ’s that needs to resound in the hearts of all Christians. We read it in today’s Gospel. It’s an apostolate that each one of us has a positive duty to carry out personally in our own surroundings, whether it be in a town, or in a part of a great city, or a very rural place, or the place we work, or at a university or in an office.

St. Josemaría in Friends of God says we will come across people who are dead, whom we have to take to receive the sacrament of penance so that they recover their supernatural life. People who are sick, who cannot manage by themselves and need help in order to approach Christ. Lepers who will be cleansed by grace through our friendship with them. People possessed, whose cure will require of us an extraordinary prayer and penance.

As well as constancy, we cannot forget that souls improve with time. We must be aware of the different situations and circumstances of those who need our help. We’re told of St. Barnabas that he was a good man who deserved the surname “son of consolation,” and that he brought peace to many hearts. The Acts of the Apostles tell us, the first time they mention him, of his large-heartedness, a breadth of sympathy which can be seen in his generosity and in his spirit of detachment. We’re told Barnabas sold a field which belonged to him and brought the money and laid it at the feet of the apostles (cf. Acts 4:36’37).

In this way he was able to follow Our Lord with greater freedom. It’s interesting to see how the first Christians functioned, how they maneuvered to help support the apostles in their work of evangelization, with that background economic support that they needed for all their works. There are many similarities in today’s environment.

A generous and detached soul is in a position to give everybody a welcome and to understand the state that souls are in. When people feel they are understood, it’s more likely that they will allow themselves to be helped. In the apostolate, the best means a Christian has of winning people over is precisely this welcoming openness towards others. Accepting them, says St. Augustine, and really appreciating them as they are. For nobody can be known except in terms of the friendship that we bear towards him.

If we are to understand others, we need to look at everything that is positive about them, to see their faults only within the context of their good qualities, whether these good qualities are actual or simply potential. And we have to want to help them. St. Teresa gives us a certain amount of advice. She says, “Let us labor therefore always to consider the virtues and the good qualities that we discern in others, and with our own great sins cover our eyes so that we may see no more of their failings.”

St. Bernard encourages us. He says, “Even if you do see something bad, do not immediately pass judgment on your neighbor, but rather find excuses for him within yourself. Excuse his intentions if you cannot excuse his deeds.” St. Bernard says, “Think that he must have acted out of ignorance or have been overcome by surprise or misfortune.” If his conduct is so obviously bad that it cannot be overlooked, even then try to think in this way and say to yourself, “The temptation must have been very strong.”

We have to learn from Our Lord to live harmoniously with everyone, not to think too much about the way people around us fail to correspond with our efforts or seem deficient in good manners or generosity. Such shortcomings can often be the result of ignorance, of loneliness, or no more than just plain tiredness. The good we set out to do rises above all such mere trifles. If we consider them in God’s presence, they cease to have any real importance.

In The Forge we’re told, “You spend your time with that companion of yours who is scarcely even civil to you, and it’s hard. Keep at it and don’t judge him. He’ll have his reasons, just as you have yours, which you strengthen so as to pray for him more each day.” Those reasons of ours originate in and are centered upon the tabernacle. We’re told in the Psalms: “Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody! With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord!” (Ps. 98:5’6).

It’s possible that some Christians allow themselves to be carried away by a bitter zeal, as they see everything around them so seemingly far from God, and see the lifestyle adopted by many people whom they feel should be giving better example. Such zealous Christians try to do good, but they are all the time lamenting the obvious evil they see around them and reproaching society, which according to them should take drastic measures to put an end to such evil.

God does not want us to be like that. He gave His life serenely and peacefully on the cross for all men. It would be a great failure if Christians were to adopt a negative attitude towards the world they have to save. We can see the first generations of those who followed Christ always full of joy, in spite of the frequent tribulations they had to undergo. In the Acts of the Apostles, when St. Luke tries to describe in a few words the little communities that had sprung up everywhere, he tells us that “the church was built up, and walking in the fear of the Lord and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit, it was multiplied” (Acts 9:31).

This is the peace of Christ, which we will never lack if we follow him closely. It’s the peace we have to give to everyone. We have to imitate Our Lord and resolutely reject any attitude tainted with harshness, bitterness, or a desire for condemnation. If as Christians we are to bring joy to the world, how can we think of presenting the good news as something unattractive or condemnatory? How can we judge others if we do not have the necessary facts on which to judge? And above all, if nobody has in any case given us such a mission?

Our attitude towards everyone should always be one of salvation, of peace, of understanding, and of joy. Even towards those who at some time or other may have behaved unjustly towards us. Understanding is real charity. St. Josemaría comments, “When you really achieve it, you will have a great heart which is open to all without discrimination, even with those who have treated you badly. We will put into living practice that advice of Jesus: ‘Come to me all you that are heavy laden and I will give you rest’” (cf. Matt. 11:28).

Each Christian is Christ, who passes by among his own, who lightens their burdens and shows them the way to salvation. We can ask Our Lord that we might have the same love that inspired St. Barnabas to carry the light of the Gospel to the Gentiles.

We’re told in St. John, “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:14). During their long journey through the desert, the chosen people would set up the tent of meeting outside of their camp. It was a holy site, away from the business of the world. To visit the Lord one had to leave the camp. It was there that Moses went to plead for his people before the Lord. We’re told in the book of Exodus, “Thus the Lord used to speak to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend” (Exod. 33:11).

There are a number of occasions when Scripture reveals God to be a friend of men. Through the prophet Isaiah, God speaks of “Abraham my friend” (Isa. 41:8). The chosen people rely on this friendship to obtain pardon and divine protection. Even more, the whole of revelation tends towards the formation of a people who are friends with God, bound to him by an intimate covenant which is continually renewed. The Second Vatican Council says, “Through this revelation, therefore, the invisible God out of the abundance of his love speaks to men as friends and lives among them, so that he may invite and take them into fellowship with himself” (Dei Verbum, 2).

This divine plan came to fruition in the fullness of time, when the Son of God, the second person of the Blessed Trinity, became man. Friendship presupposes a certain equality and personal contact. But the distance between God and man is infinite. God took on a human nature so that man could take part in his divinity by means of sanctifying grace. Friendship requires mutual love. God reached out to us, and so we were able to correspond. “We love him,” said St. John, “because he first loved us” (1 John 4:19). And Jesus says to us, “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love” (John 15:9). And Jesus prays to his Father “that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26).

All of our apostolate is an apostolate of love, of reaching out in love to the souls that God has placed around us. The Christian’s joy is rooted in the sure knowledge that God loves him. Because God said, “You are my friends” (John 15:14). It can be a great joy for us to call ourselves the friends of God.

In the course of his earthly life, Our Lord was always open to friendship with those who approached him. On some occasions, it was he who took the initiative to bring people to himself, as in the case of Zacchaeus, or that of the Samaritan woman. He was a friend to his disciples, and they were quite aware of his concern. When they didn’t understand something, they would draw close to him with confidence, as is shown in many places in the Gospel. They ask Our Lord, “Explain to us the parable” (Matt. 15:15). Our Lord takes them aside and reveals to them the meaning of his teachings. The disciples joined in Christ’s happiness and in Christ’s worries. He encouraged them whenever necessary.

In a like manner, Our Lord now offers his friendship to us from the tabernacle. All this is very relevant for the personal apostolate with our friends that we have to carry out, similar to what St. Barnabas did in the times of the early Christians. There is a great difference between our temples—the house of God made man—and the tent of meeting. But the same Jesus, the same one who was born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, he who was to die for us on a cross, is present there. Christ was the perfect model of true friendship. He enjoyed speaking with everyone who came to see him, and with those he met along the road. He took advantage of those moments to enter into souls, to raise up hearts to a higher plane.

If the person concerned was well disposed, Jesus would give him or her the grace to be converted and make a commitment to his service. He also wants to speak to us or with us in the time of prayer. For this to happen, we have to be willing to talk and be open to real friendship. He himself has changed us from being servants to being friends. We’re told in St. John, “You are my friends if you do what I command you” (John 15:14). He has given us a model which we should imitate. As a result, we have to give our willingness as a friend, telling him what we have in our soul and paying close attention to what he carries in his heart. Once we open up our soul, he will reveal his own. “I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you” (John 15:15).

St. Ambrose says that a true friend hides nothing from his friend; he reveals all of his spirit. Just as Jesus poured out into the hearts of the apostles the mysteries of the Father. Christians should be men and women with a great capacity for friendship. Because close contact with Jesus prepares us to put aside our egoism, our excessive preoccupation with personal problems. In that way we can be open to all those whom we meet along the way, even though they be of different ages, interests, cultures, or positions. We can thus be open to everybody.

Real friendship is not born of a mere occasional meeting or from simple mutual need of assistance, not even camaraderie. A shared task under the same roof will not necessarily lead to friendship. As we look at the history of one of the great apostles of the early times, we ask St. Barnabas to help us to have that same zeal, that yearning to spread the truths of the kingdom in ever more effective ways all throughout our life.

I thank you, my God, for the good resolutions, affections, and inspirations that you have communicated to me during this meditation. I ask your help to put them into practice. My Immaculate Mother, St. Joseph, my father and lord, my guardian angel, intercede for me.

In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

EW