Ostium Catholic

Barnabas arrived in Antioch and saw grace - Gentiles turning to the Lord, the faith spreading among people the Jerusalem church hadn't planned for. His first response was joy. His second was encouragement. That order is Barnabas's distinctive gift: he sees what God is doing before he tries to shape what God is doing.

He was a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith. In your twenties the formation of good character - the simply-good-man or good-woman quality - can feel less glamorous than spiritual gifts or leadership capacity. But Barnabas's epitaph is that he was a good man. The goodness is the foundation from which everything else follows.

Freely received, freely given. The mission Jesus describes is stripped of the accumulation that would make it a career. The laborer deserves his keep. Nothing else. In your twenties, as the career is being built, the freely-given posture is the corrective to the accumulation logic that feels natural in the professional world.

He saw the grace of God and rejoiced. This week, practice seeing before shaping. Name one person or situation where your first response has been to assess or improve rather than to recognize and rejoice. Practice the Barnabas order: see, rejoice, then encourage.

Lord, let me be a good person, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith. Let me see the grace before I try to shape it. Sacred Heart of Jesus, I trust in you. Amen.