Preach saying: Barnabas, Mary, and the gift of apostolic mission

**Quoting Scripture:** “Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations; baptize them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the holy Spirit. Teach them to observe all that I have commanded you. And lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:19-20)**Saint Barnabas: The Son of Consolation**The feast of Saint Barnabas, celebrated on June 11th, honors one of the most generous and lesser-known figures of the Early Church. Joseph of Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas, meaning *”Son of Encouragement”* (Acts 4:36), was a Cypriot Levite who sold his property and placed the proceeds at the feet of the apostles (Acts 4:36-37), introduced Paul of Tarsus to the community in Jerusalem when everyone feared him (Acts 9:27), and went to seek him out in Tarsus when no one else would (Acts 11:25-26). He accompanied Paul on his first mission to the Gentiles (Acts 13-14). Their subsequent separation, due to John Mark, whom Paul wanted to abandon but Barnabas did not (Acts 15:39), was not a sign of weakness but compassion. Barnabas bet on those others had discarded.**The Gospel for this Feast (Matthew 10:7-13)**This feast’s Gospel is the mission speech Jesus gives to the twelve before sending them out to villages in Galilee. It underscores the urgency of the Kingdom, justifying a radical missionary style: going without purse, bag, or shoes, trusting in the provision of those who welcome them. The central principle, *”You have received gratis, give gratis”* (gratis accepistis, gratis date), is the fundamental law of authentic Christian mission: grace cannot be bought or sold; it must circulate with the same free gift it was received. Barnabas lived this principle. Mary, the first missionary, inaugurated it.**I. Barnabas: The Son of Encouragement**Barnabas’ nickname, *uios parakleseos*, *”Son of Consolation”*, is one of the most beautiful characterizations in the New Testament. The *Parakletos*, the Holy Spirit, is the Comforter, the Encourager of the Church on its mission path. Barnabas was described as someone in whom this gift became visibly present within the community life. His initial generosity, selling his field, was just the first act of complete availability to serve the mission.Barnabas’ role as mediator and door-opener is a service rarely celebrated but essential to church life. Without Barnabas, Paul would have remained isolated from Jerusalem, and the history of Christianity could have taken a very different turn. Barnabas’ generosity was not only material but relational: he bet on Paul when no one else did, on John Mark when Paul discarded him. This apostolate of trust, recognizing the value of those others discard, opening doors that fear or resentment had closed, is one of the most fertile forms of apostolic mission at any time.The separation of Barnabas and Paul in Acts 15:36-40 is reported without judgment; Luke simply narrates that *”a great dissension arose”* (lo, divergence tēn hēmeran egenet). Barnabas took John Mark to Cyprus. Paul chose Silas for Asia Minor. What could have been seen as a breakdown in communion actually became a multiplication of the mission: two groups instead of one, covering more territory, reaching more people. This *”providence in ruptures”*, where even human conflicts serve the expansion of the Gospel, is a recurring pattern in Church history, and Barnabas is its first apostolic example.**II. “You have received gratis, give gratis”**The principle of missionary gratuity, “gratis recebestes, grátis dai” (Receive freely, give freely), combats the perpetual temptation to make grace into a business. Simonization, derived from Simon the Magician (Acts 8:18-24), who sought to purchase the gift of the Holy Spirit, is not only the buying and selling of sacraments prohibited by canon law, but any attitude that conditions ecclesial service with returns, making mission an instrument of power or influence. Grace, by definition, overflows. The authentic missionary is the channel, not the owner.The theology of mission from the Second Vatican Council, developed in Paul VI’s “Evangelii Nuntiandi” (1975) and John Paul II’s “Redemptoris Missio” (1990), reclaimed this gratuity as a central criterion for authentic missionary work. A mission seeking power, cultural influence, or numerical success has betrayed its nature. Authentic mission plants without expecting harvest, serves without calculating returns, sows in the margins where human return is minimal. This style, that of Barnabas, who went to Cyprus without knowing if the fruit would be visible, is the style of all faithful Christian mission adhering to Matthew 10’s discourse.The connection with Mary is immediate: the Visitation is the evangelical archetype of gratuitous mission. Mary, who “went in haste” to the mountains of Judah, did not calculate the cost of the journey nor charge for her presence. Her service to Elizabeth, staying three months pregnant, was a gift without reciprocation, seeking no recognition. This style of the Visitation is the model of Matthew 10’s discourse: enter houses, bring peace, serve, leave, without bag or backpack, trusting in providence. Mary was the first to live this missionary style that Jesus would teach to the twelve.### III. Mary and Barnabas: Door OpenersThere is a deep affinity between the spirituality of Barnabas and the Marian spirituality. Both Mary and Barnabas are figures who “open doors,” not by their own initiative, but as instruments of grace that opens unexpected paths. Mary opened the door of Incarnation with her “fiat” that made possible God’s presence in the world. Barnabas opened the door to mission among the Gentiles by trusting Paul, the most unlikely figure of apostolic ministry to the nations. Both said “yes” at a time when fear or human calculation would have said “no.”The Marian missionary tradition, from the Oblates of Mary Immaculate (founded by Eugene de Mazenod in 1816 specifically for mission among the poor and peripheral) to female missionary congregations, sees in Mary the model and protector of mission. This veneration is not empty devotion: it recognizes that the missionary style of Matthew 10, free, itinerant, vulnerable, trusting in providence, was lived in an unparalleled way by Mary of Nazareth. The missionary who “went in haste” without bag or program is the icon of all authentic mission.John Paul II, in Redemptoris Mater (1987), extensively developed the image of Mary as the first “missionary”: “just as she went to Elizabeth with the precious gift she had received at the time of the Annunciation, so she continues to meet men of every age, bringing them the same gift” (RM 22). This continued mission of Mary, not only as a historical model but as an active intercessor with her Son, is the theological foundation for Marian missionary devotion that inspired Barnabas and animates the Church in each generation.IV. The Gift of Encouragement: The Church That Bets on the DiscardedThe charisma of Barnabas, recognizing and betting on the value of those others discard, is necessary in every generation of the Church. In a Church tempted by efficiency, the logic of success, and visibility, the barnabite charisma is that of betting on the peripheries: those who fail, those who need a second chance, Paul of Tarsus that the community fears. This apostolate of trust, giving credit where fear denies it, is one of the most fertile and least celebrated forms of ecclesial mission.Popular tradition recognizes in Mary the universal “Barnabas” of ecclesial life: the one who intercedes for those no one else intercedes, the one who opens doors sin has closed. In the invocations of Salve Regina (“To thee we sigh, weeping and mourning in this valley of tears… show us Jesus, the blessed fruit of thy womb”), resounds precisely the charisma of encouragement: Mary as the one who brings the discarded to meet her Son, who never gives up on any lost cause, who remains by those whom human logic has already abandoned.The feast of Saint Barnabas invites every Christian community to ask: Who are your Barnabases, those who open doors for the excluded, who trust in those who fail? And who are your Pauls of Tarsus, those who need someone to bet on them? This invisible apostolate of encouragement, which rarely makes headlines or is recorded in church annals, may be the most necessary and most fertile form of mission in the Church of the 21st century, and has Mary and Barnabas as its unsurpassable models.