for June 11
Memorial of St. Barnabas, Apostle

I grew up with sayings. My mother’s tended toward folk wisdom, such as—when she saw me run back up to my room to get something I’d forgotten just before walking out the door—“the one who doesn’t have it in their head has to have it in their feet.” At school we had sayings with a didactic or moral bent. Some teachers posted them in their classrooms. I still remember a colorful rendition of “Learn to listen and listen to learn.” That could be applied to today’s Gospel passage, a continuation of the Sermon on the Mount in which Jesus is teaching his listeners about living as his disciples. But it’s another aphorism I often heard as a child that has come to my mind: “Virtue is its own reward.”

I used to understand that saying as a call to altruism. The sentiment seemed to be that any benefits that come from doing a good deed taint the deed. Virtuous living is about depriving oneself of rewards. But as I’ve gotten to know Jesus better through reading scripture, prayer, and my own experience, I’ve come to feel he would not endorse that interpretation. Rather, Jesus focuses on the law as regulating life in a community of believers. The law with its many precepts can be summed up in two commandments. Last week we read about Jesus and the scribe agreeing that the love of God with one’s whole self and the love of neighbor as oneself constitute those two great commandments. The intent of the law is to facilitate love of God and love of neighbor. Jesus’s innovation is to place particular emphasis on love. To be true to the law’s purpose is to act in the most loving way possible, not just to follow the directives, and that actually results in a stricter observance. In Jesus’s view, it’s not enough to refrain from harming another person; desiring to harm them also contradicts the law. Later Jesus will add a third commandment: “Love one another as I have loved you.” He himself is the model for how the law is to be observed. The Sanhedrin, the Jewish court, had jurisdiction over people’s behavior, but it is God that has jurisdiction over people’s hearts.

There are rewards for living righteously and Jesus commends them. Living out of love brings the reward of more love—a more intimate relationship with God, more harmony with others, a more peaceful and contented heart, a fulfilling engagement with the world. St. Barnabas, whose memorial we celebrate today, is a good example of such a person. A Jew from Crete originally named Joseph, he sold his land and joined the early Christian community that Acts tells us “were of one heart and soul.” The community gave him the name Barnabas, which means “son of encouragement,” an indication of the sort of person they recognized him to be. Today’s first reading recounts the fruits of his virtue in the church in Antioch. Filled with the Holy Spirit, he brings joy, faith, and support and the church grows strong (the word “virtue” comes from a Latin word meaning strength). Barnabas is a team player. He seeks out Paul to help him with the ministry and the two of them build the first community to be called Christians. They then move on to evangelize in other places and attend the Council of Jerusalem together before parting company.

Far from being a deprivation, virtue is an embracing of the joy of the Gospel, a sharing in Jesus’s love of life, the relief of letting go of resentments and enmities. And it is the inner peace that comes with working for justice and mercy even if it leads to persecution and suffering. The psalm reminds us that “The Lord has made his salvation known: in the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.” Those whose perspective is narrowly focused on themselves may be blind to God’s justice. That is why Jesus calls us to a discipleship that sheds the light of righteousness and love on the darkness of forces that oppress and seek to degrade our fellow human beings.
—Christine Szczepanowski

The readings can be found on the US Conference of Catholic Bishops website.