Today is June 11, Memorial of Saint Barnabas, Apostle.
We read today in Scripture, “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” (Acts 11:22).
When Barnabas is sent by the Church in Jerusalem to visit the new community of believers in Antioch, what does he do? He encourages them all to remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart.
That phrase, “firmness of heart,” is worth lingering on today.
To be firm in heart is to be grounded in Christ, unshaken in faith, anchored in the truth. The early Church saw that Barnabas possessed this kind of spiritual stability. And why? Because his heart was marked by faith and the Holy Spirit. Those are the two signs of a heart that stands firm: it trusts deeply and is filled with God’s presence.
This idea connects beautifully to the words of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount: “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also” (Mt 6:21). In other words, what we value most shapes where our heart lives.
A liberating faith
St. Thomas Aquinas teaches that our will is always drawn to what we perceive as good. The trouble with sin is that we often mistake a lesser good — or even something harmful — for something desirable. But when our heart is ordered toward the highest good, toward heaven, it becomes firm. It becomes free.
Some might argue that religion restricts us, that being “grounded in faith” limits our potential. But the truth is quite the opposite. Faith liberates us. When our heart is grounded in Christ, when our treasure is truly in heaven, we become who we were meant to be.
So today, let’s take a kind of spiritual compass reading. Ask yourself: Where is my heart pointing? What is my treasure? Am I building my life on Christ, or on something else?
Let us pray,
O God, who decreed that Saint Barnabas, a man filled with faith and the Holy Spirit, should be set apart to convert the nations, grant that the Gospel of Christ, which he strenuously preached, may be faithfully proclaimed by word and by deed. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
