Without Cost

"Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give." (Mt 10: 8).  As we celebrate the Memorial of St. Barnabas, traveling companion of St. Paul, this admonition which is part of a longer list of instructions Jesus gave his disciples, applies to us as his missionaries to our current world.  We are not representing ourselves but Jesus Christ, who gave up his life for us and all.  We might tend to balk at being asked to inconvenience ourselves, relinquish our plans, or stretch ourselves beyond our limits for the sake of the Gospel, but remembering the example of Jesus, Paul, Barnabas and countless others over the 2000 year history of the Church, might help us remember that our ideal is to appear before Jesus at the end of our lives, with a completely empty knapsack, having given all in service to his command to teach all nations. We have received without cost the priceless  gifts of time, health, faith, energy, and the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit, not to hoard or bury them, but to use them, to dispense them freely and boundlessly.  St. Barnabas, teach and help us to give without cost what we have received without cost and you and St. Paul did.
Bro. Rene