“As we celebrate the memorial of St Barnabas, we ask what it would mean to be remembered as “a good person, full of the Holy Spirit and of Faith.”
Readings for today can be found here.
In his book, The God of Surprises, Fr Gerard Hughes provides a number of questions and reflections at the end of each chapter. One of them was to write your own eulogy. Not what someone might say about you—but what you, in your wildest dreams, hoped might be said about you by the end of your life. It is a sobering and very profound activity, inviting us to look back at our life and stirring us to reach for the goals and achievements we had thought about.
Today, as we celebrate the memorial of St Barnabas, his whole life is summed up in in the Acts of the Apostles in one sentence: “He was a good man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.” Barnabas eventually became a companion of Paul, spending time with him in Antioch, where followers of Jesus first became known as Christians, and joining him on his missionary journeys.
How would you like to be remembered? As someone who liked to play Bingo, or have a good laugh? Someone who partied or enjoyed shopping? Someone who had a good sense of humour, enjoyed football, was straight talking, hard working or “quite a character?” Some of these things may go a little way to describe some people, and there is nothing wrong with any of it. Or we could be remembered—as St Barnabas was—as “a good person, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.” Of course, that would take a different shape in each of our lives, depending on our circumstances and what God is asking of us. But perhaps today’s memorial can stir us to look at our own lives and the impact we make upon the world, considering what it means to be “a good person, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.”
Mass today is in Ss Dyfrig and Samson at 10am
If you’d like more resources for daily prayer then check out our Day By Day pages.
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