{"id":19515,"date":"2020-06-11T05:52:58","date_gmt":"2020-06-11T09:52:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/?p=19515"},"modified":"2021-02-28T14:39:37","modified_gmt":"2021-02-28T19:39:37","slug":"barnabas-surpassing-righteousness-memorial-of-st-barnabas-june-11-2020","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/barnabas-surpassing-righteousness-memorial-of-st-barnabas-june-11-2020\/","title":{"rendered":"Barnabas&#8217; Surpassing Righteousness, Memorial of St. Barnabas, June 11, 2020"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Fr. Roger J. Landry<br \/>\nSacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan<br \/>\nMemorial of St. Barnabas<br \/>\nJune 11, 2020<br \/>\nActs 11:21-26. 13:1-3, Ps 98, Mt 5:20-26<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>To listen to an audio recording of today\u2019s homily, please click below:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-19515-2\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/catholicpreaching\/6.11.20_Homily_1.mp3?_=2\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/catholicpreaching\/6.11.20_Homily_1.mp3\">https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/catholicpreaching\/6.11.20_Homily_1.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><em>The following points were attempted in the homily:<\/em><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li class=\"\">Today in the Gospel, Jesus tells us something that should startle us, especially early in the morning: \u201cUnless your righteousness surpasses that\u00a0of the scribes and Pharisees,\u00a0you will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.\u201d That\u2019s a very tall order. \u00a0The Scribes were the experts of Sacred Scripture in its every detail. They consecrated their whole life to knowing the Word of God. The Pharisees were the ones who sought to live the Word of God expounded by the Scribes to the letter. Many of the Scribes were Pharisees and vice versa. They prayed three times a day. The fasted not just the one time prescribed per year but twice a week. They tithed not only the various items\u00a0that God had instructed but the tithed their whole income. By worldly, even by classically religious standards, their righteousness seemed to be almost unsurpassable.\u00a0But they were missing something huge. Their righteousness was fundamentally based on their own efforts, their own study, their own will-power, their own sacrifices. It\u00a0also featured\u00a0an extrinsic\u00a0understanding of being right with God: as long as they did the right things, everything was fine with God. As the converted Pharisee St. Paul would once say back to them, they thought that they were saved by their own works of the law, by their own external adhesion to the Mosaic law, and not by God, not by a faith-filled living relationship with God.<\/li>\n<li class=\"\">When Jesus calls us to surpass the righteousness of the Pharisees, he was not fundamentally calling us to surpass them in memorizing the New Testament along with the Old, in praying four times a day instead of three, in fasting three times a week instead of two, in giving twenty percent of all we have back to God instead of ten. He\u2019s calling us, rather, to three things: first, to have his own relationship to the law in fulfilling the law; second, to grasp that it is all about loving God with everything we have and loving our neighbor as Christ has loved us (which is why we have today\u2019s Alleluia verse, to help us remember this); and to interiorize the law so that our heart is changed, not just our outward behavior. He\u2019s calling us to allow the Word of God, Love incarnate, to become enfleshed within. He\u2019s summoning us to permit God to give us a new heart, to place his law within us as he pours Himself, the Holy Spirit, into our hearts. God had told us\u00a0through the Prophet Jeremiah that one day he would write his law in our hearts, and that\u2019s precisely what Jesus came to do. That\u2019s what the Holy Spirit seeks to accomplish.<\/li>\n<li class=\"\">Today Jesus begins a series of powerful applications of what this looks like, because these are things on which everyone needs to surpass the Scribes and the Pharisees. The first is with regard to the fifth commandment. The Lord says, \u201cYou have heard that it was said to your ancestors,\u00a0<em class=\"\">You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment<\/em>.\u00a0But I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother\u00a0will be liable to judgment,\u00a0and whoever says to his brother,\u00a0\u2018Raqa,\u2019 will be answerable to the Sanhedrin,\u00a0and whoever says, \u2018You fool,\u2019 will be liable to fiery Gehenna.\u201d Jesus wants to transform the way we relate to others so that we will love them as he has loved us. It\u2019s not enough merely not to kill others. He doesn\u2019t want us to insult them. He doesn\u2019t want us to hate them. Jesus wants to teach us\u00a0to love those whom others would be tempted even to murder, to love those who make us angry, to love those who are fools. The failure to love neighbor is something that he found often in the Scribes and Pharisees and was calling us to surpass. True love of neighbor, even and especially when it&#8217;s hard, is the type of offering God wants us to give him when we come to worship him, which we see in the second part of today\u2019s Gospel. Jesus says, \u201cTherefore\u201d \u2014 linking both parts and this is key for us to grasp as we come here today to pray the Mass \u2014 \u201cif you bring your gift to the altar,\u00a0and there recall that your brother\u00a0has anything against you,\u00a0leave your gift there at the altar,\u00a0go first and be reconciled with your brother,\u00a0and then come and offer your gift.\u201d The type of offering God wants from us is the offering of love, of forgiveness and reconciliation, of kindness,\u00a0toward his beloved sons and daughters who are our blood or spiritual brothers and sisters. He recognizes that murder begins in the heart, with resentment, with fear, with vengeance, with lack of harmony. If love for others is lacking, he says, our offering to God is in vain. We can\u2019t come to receive the gift God wants to give us if we\u2019ve closed our hearts to the way he wants us to live. Ultimately the offering God calls us to make when we come before him is our \u201c<em>logike latreia<\/em>\u201d (Rom 12:2), the only worship that makes sense, our bodies, our entire lives, as a holy and acceptable oblation. It\u2019s to put ourselves at God\u2019s total service. And if we refuse to reconcile, then we are not at God\u2019s service. If we\u2019re not loving our neighbor, we\u2019re really not loving God. If\u00a0we can just focus on God without reconciling with our neighbor Jesus is telling us today the absolute opposite, and giving us a choice between the \u201ckingdom of heaven\u201d and a \u201cprison\u201d from which we will not be released until we have paid the last penny. This type of reconciliation with others, this type of fraternal, faithful love, was what many\u00a0Scribes and Pharisees refused to do. They condescendingly disdained their neighbor who didn\u2019t live as outwardly righteous lives as they did. They disparaged the Gentiles as if their entire bodies were meant just to be fuel for the fires of Gehenna. That\u2019s why for many of them their worship was in vain because they refused to allow God to transform them into his loving, merciful image and likeness.<\/li>\n<li>Today the Church celebrates the Memorial of St. Barnabas, whose righteousness did surpass that of the scribes and Pharisees and who taught the early Church how to reconcile with St. Paul, how to love the one who <em>formerly\u00a0<\/em>had been their enemy, who encouraged them to offer themselves and their goods fully to God. \u00a0St. Barnabas is one of the most important figures in the history of the early Church and, I think, among the least appreciated. Early in the Acts of the Apostles, St. Luke tells us that his real name was Joseph, but the apostles nicknamed him Barnabas, which means \u201cson of encouragement.\u201d Why did they give him that moniker? It could have been because he had sold a field he owned and laid the proceeds at the apostles\u2019 feet, an obvious sign of his total commitment to Christ and total trust in the apostles Christ had chosen to lead the early Church. Such a gesture, common among the first disciples, would have certainly inspired the other members of the burgeoning Church courageously to do the same. But the nickname was an excellent summary of his entire personality, for he was someone who gave others courage, who believed in them, who filled them to respond to God with enthusiasm. In today\u2019s first reading, St. Luke tells us that when he arrived in Antioch, \u201che rejoiced and encouraged them all\u00a0to remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>But we see his encouragement\u00a0especially in his interaction with St. Paul. Today in the Gospel, the Holy Spirit speaks to the first members of the Church in Antioch and says, \u201cSet apart for me Barnabas and Saul\u00a0for the work to which I have called them.\u201d It was the Holy Spirit\u2019s plans for them to go on the first great missionary journey in the Church, but there was a huge pre-history to that commissioning, one in which Barnabas, inspired by the Gift of Courage, was able to encourage Paul and the entire Church to recognize Paul\u2019s gifts. Without Barnabas\u2019 intervention, Paul likely would have remained, lived and died a tent-maker in Tarsus. Instead, because of Barnabas\u2019 courageous and encouraging interventions, Paul was able to become the greatest missionary in the history of the Church. It was Barnabas who was the catalyst for bringing Paul out of obscurity, making him his collaborator, vouching for him with the leaders and members of the Church who didn\u2019t trust him because of his murderous past, and launching him on the trajectory that led to his founding so many Churches across the ancient world.<\/li>\n<li>As we know from the Acts of the Apostles, after his conversion, Paul immediately began to proclaim Jesus in the synagogues, announcing that he was the Messiah and Son of God. As he began to annihilate the Damascene Jews in debates, several of the vanquished conspired to have him assassinated, watching out for him at the city gates to murder him. Paul and the other disciples heard about the plot, however, and lowered him outside the city walls in a basket to escape. So Paul went to Jerusalem where he tried to join the disciples, live the Christian life and help wherever he could. St. Luke tells us, however, that sadly \u201cthey were all afraid of him, not believing that he was a disciple.\u201d The disciples didn\u2019t want to have anything to do with him. They were all terrified of him because of the way he used to terrorize their community, presiding over the stoning of St. Stephen, ripping the believers out of their homes and bringing them before the religious courts, and even getting an order to go to Damascus and bring back the Christians in chains. They likely thought that his celebrated conversion was a ruse just so that Paul could infiltrate the Christians, get to know them and where they live, and finish the job of wiping them out that he had previously worked so hard to achieve The members of the Church in Jerusalem, apostles and disciples, didn\u2019t believe yet in the power of God\u2019s amazing grace that could save a sinner like Paul. They didn\u2019t believe that God could convert a murderer of Christians into a maker of Christians. They didn\u2019t believe that God could change someone who used to rip Christians from their homes to one who would help form Christian homes. They couldn\u2019t see how someone who had presided over the stoning of St. Stephen would eventually become someone who himself would be stoned because of his building his life on the stone rejected by the builders who had become the cornerstone of his life.<\/li>\n<li>That\u2019s the first time Barnabas, the son of encouragement, intervened. It\u2019s not hard to imagine how abandoned Paul must have felt after the Jerusalem Church\u2019s rejection: the vast majority of his own people likely looked on him as a traitor, some of his former teammates in the extirpation of Christians were now coming after him, and the Christians, whom he had hoped to fill with joy at the news of his conversion, wanted no part of him. Seeing the situation of Paul the Pariah, Barnabas acted, for Paul and for the Church. He wasn\u2019t going to let what the Lord had done on the road to Damascus go to waste. So he went to find Paul and then, St. Luke tells us, \u201ctook him by the hand and brought him to the apostles, declaring to them how on the road he had seen the Lord, who spoke to him, and how at Damascus he had preached boldly in the name of Jesus.\u201d Barnabas told Paul\u2019s conversion story to the other members of the Church of Jerusalem \u2014 which shows that obviously he had heard it step-by-step from Paul before. He also passed on how Paul after his conversion was doing more to spread the faith than many of those who were timidly hovering in Jerusalem. Because of Barnabas\u2019 action, encouragement, and personal recommendation, the Church of Jerusalem welcomed him. From that moment, Paul started to do in Jerusalem the same things he had done in Damascus, and \u201cspeak out boldly in the name of the Lord.\u201d He debated both Jews and Greeks. Once again, however, the Jewish leaders plotted to kill him for persuading people to Christianity \u2014\u00a0just as the Sanhedrin had done to Jesus and Saul himself had tried done to Stephen and other members of the early Church. So the disciples took him down to Caesarea by the Sea and sent him home to Tarsus. Fearing for Paul\u2019s life, the Church in Jerusalem decided to rush him down to Caesarea and send him home to Tarsus. It\u2019s possible that Paul was rashly looking for a quick martyrdom in expiation for all the lives he had taken previously, but the Church, especially Barnabas, didn\u2019t want the one chosen by the Lord to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles to have his mission as a Christian evangelist cut short prematurely. It\u2019s probable that Barnabas accompanied Paul down to the sea to send Paul home and he likely encouraged him to get ready for what would come later.<\/li>\n<li>Later came rather soon. After the Church in Jerusalem had heard of how many converts were entering the Church in Antioch, they sent Barnabas to encourage them \u201cto remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart\u201d and guide them into a deeper grasp of the Gospel. St. Luke tells us today that his preaching and exhortation only served to make more converts. They all regarded him as a \u201cgood man, full of the Holy Spirit and of faith.\u201d Barnabas did not have the time to guide them all and needed other expert help. Rather than assuming the arduous task of training others to be teachers or going back to Jerusalem to find help, he traveled to Tarsus to find Paul and bring him back to Antioch. Barnabas knew Paul was ready. And so he encouraged\u00a0him to leave his tent-making behind and come with him to make temples of the Holy Spirit. Paul agreed. And they headed to Antioch where \u201cfor a whole year they met with the Church and taught a large number of people,\u201d forming them in the love of the Lord in such a way that it the disciples for the first time were called \u201clittle Christs,\u201d or \u201cChristians.\u201d It was after that year\u2019s worth of hard work tilling the soil of souls in Syria that the Holy Spirit spoke while the Church was worshipping the Lord and fasting and asked for\u00a0Barnabas and Saul to be set apart for the work to which he was calling them.\u00a0And that\u2019s when the two of them began the first of the great missionary journeys in Church history, implanting the Gospel across Asia Minor. The rest is, in a sense, history.<\/li>\n<li>Little did Barnabas know that when he put his own reputation on the line for Paul before the Apostles in Jerusalem, when he went to Tarsus to ask for help, what the Holy Spirit would later do. All he did was encourage and invite. The Lord did the rest. There\u2019s a great lesson for all of here. Are we men and women of similar encouragement, enthusiastically trying to inspire others to grow in faith to surpassing righteousness, to come more deeply into their friendship with Christ, inviting them and facilitating for them to use the gifts God has given them to share in the work of spreading the faith? Do we live our faith with a boldness that inspires others to live their faith with courage? Do we seek to bring those who have been alienated or judged back into the community? Do we reconcile with our brothers? The Church today needs many more Barnabases, men and women who aren\u2019t afraid to encourage others to share their work, to stick up for others when others don\u2019t think they\u2019re capable or qualified, to invite them to collaborate in the joyful duty of passing on the Good News to others. In an age of so much depression and sadness, we need Barnabases who can inspire with Christian hope. In an age in which people are haunted by the mistakes and sins of the past, we need Barnabases who can point out that they\u2019ve changed and that we should not waste out of fear the talents God has given. At a time when so many have wandered away from the Church, we need Barnabases who can encourage them to come home and to use the gifts God has given them for the building up of his kingdom. Just as in ancient Antioch, so today, there aren\u2019t enough laborers in the Lord\u2019s vineyard to attend to the ripe fruit on the vine. There are so many sheep in the Lord\u2019s fold who need good shepherds to care for them, not to mention so many sheep who have wandered from the fold who need those acting in the person of the Good Shepherd to leave the 99 behind and go out in search for them. It\u2019s something that Pope Francis can\u2019t do all by himself. It\u2019s something that the bishops united with him can\u2019t do by themselves. It\u2019s something that all the priests of the world can\u2019t do together. It\u2019s something that all the religious, the missionaries and consecrated people can\u2019t do. It\u2019s something for which even all the catechists together with clergy and religious can\u2019t do. It\u2019s something for which we\u2019re all needed. Today Barnabas, that \u201cgood man filled with the Holy Spirit and with faith,\u201d on behalf of God comes to us as he did to Saul in Tarsus to encourage us to get involved.<\/li>\n<li>Today as we come to present ourselves to the altar, we ask the Lord\u2019s grace so that we may do so like Barnabas, placing ourselves at the foot of the altar like he placed his goods at the feet of the apostles. We pray for the grace to seek reconciliation with all those whom we have hurt and with all who have hurt us, so that together with them we may rejoice in the celebration in the House of Father, where the Father prepares for us not a fatted calf but a Lamb looking as if he has been slain. This is the food, this is the means, that will enable us to allow God to form us through our freedom toward surpassing righteousness so that we might enter the Kingdom.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><em>The readings for today\u2019s Mass were:\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n<div class=\"bibleReadingsWrapper\">\n<h4>Reading 1\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/acts\/11:21\">ACTS 11:21B-26; 13:1-3<\/a><\/h4>\n<div class=\"poetry\">In those days a great number who believed turned to the Lord.<br \/>\nThe news about them reached the ears of the Church in Jerusalem,<br \/>\nand they sent Barnabas to go to Antioch.<br \/>\nWhen he arrived and saw the grace of God,<br \/>\nhe rejoiced and encouraged them all<br \/>\nto remain faithful to the Lord in firmness of heart,<br \/>\nfor he was a good man, filled with the Holy Spirit and faith.<br \/>\nAnd a large number of people was added to the Lord.<br \/>\nThen he went to Tarsus to look for Saul,<br \/>\nand when he had found him he brought him to Antioch.<br \/>\nFor a whole year they met with the Church<br \/>\nand taught a large number of people,<br \/>\nand it was in Antioch that the disciples<br \/>\nwere first called Christians.<\/div>\n<div class=\"poetry\">Now there were in the Church at Antioch prophets and teachers:<br \/>\nBarnabas, Symeon who was called Niger,<br \/>\nLucius of Cyrene,<br \/>\nManaen who was a close friend of Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.<br \/>\nWhile they were worshiping the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said,<br \/>\n\u201cSet apart for me Barnabas and Saul<br \/>\nfor the work to which I have called them.\u201d<br \/>\nThen, completing their fasting and prayer,<br \/>\nthey laid hands on them and sent them off.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"bibleReadingsWrapper\">\n<h4>Responsorial Psalm\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/psalms\/98:1\">PS 98:1, 2-3AB, 3CD-4, 5-6<\/a><\/h4>\n<div class=\"poetry\">R. (see 2b)\u00a0The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.<br \/>\nSing to the LORD a new song,<br \/>\nfor he has done wondrous deeds;<br \/>\nHis right hand has won victory for him,<br \/>\nhis holy arm.<br \/>\nR.\u00a0The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.<br \/>\nThe LORD has made his salvation known:<br \/>\nin the sight of the nations he has revealed his justice.<br \/>\nHe has remembered his kindness and his faithfulness<br \/>\ntoward the house of Israel.<br \/>\nR.\u00a0The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.<br \/>\nAll the ends of the earth have seen<br \/>\nthe salvation by our God.<br \/>\nSing joyfully to the LORD, all you lands;<br \/>\nbreak into song; sing praise.<br \/>\nR.\u00a0The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.<br \/>\nSing praise to the LORD with the harp,<br \/>\nwith the harp and melodious song.<br \/>\nWith trumpets and the sound of the horn<br \/>\nsing joyfully before the King, the LORD.<br \/>\nR.\u00a0The Lord has revealed to the nations his saving power.<\/div>\n<div class=\"poetry\">\n<div id=\"cs_control_228454\" class=\"cs_control CS_Element_Textblock\">\n<div class=\"CS_Textblock_Text\">\n<div class=\"bibleReadingsWrapper\">\n<h4>Alleluia <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/john\/13:34\">JN 13:34<\/a><\/h4>\n<div class=\"poetry\">\n<p>R. <strong>Alleluia, alleluia.<\/strong><br \/>\nI give you a new commandment:<br \/>\nlove one another as I have loved you.<br \/>\nR. <strong>Alleluia, alleluia.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<h4>Gospel <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usccb.org\/bible\/matthew\/5:20\">MT 5:20-26<\/a><\/h4>\n<div class=\"poetry\">\n<p>Jesus said to his disciples:<br \/>\n\u201cI tell you, unless your righteousness surpasses that<br \/>\nof the scribes and Pharisees,<br \/>\nyou will not enter into the Kingdom of heaven.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou have heard that it was said to your ancestors,<br \/>\n<em>You shall not kill; and whoever kills will be liable to judgment.<\/em><br \/>\nBut I say to you, whoever is angry with his brother<br \/>\nwill be liable to judgment,<br \/>\nand whoever says to his brother, Raqa,<br \/>\nwill be answerable to the Sanhedrin,<br \/>\nand whoever says, \u2018You fool,\u2019 will be liable to fiery Gehenna.<br \/>\nTherefore, if you bring your gift to the altar,<br \/>\nand there recall that your brother<br \/>\nhas anything against you,<br \/>\nleave your gift there at the altar,<br \/>\ngo first and be reconciled with your brother,<br \/>\nand then come and offer your gift.<br \/>\nSettle with your opponent quickly while on the way to court with him.<br \/>\nOtherwise your opponent will hand you over to the judge,<br \/>\nand the judge will hand you over to the guard,<br \/>\nand you will be thrown into prison.<br \/>\nAmen, I say to you,<br \/>\nyou will not be released until you have paid the last penny.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/st_barnabas-sm.gif?ssl=1\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-19516\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/st_barnabas-sm.gif?resize=174%2C248&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"\" width=\"174\" height=\"248\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_9294\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-19515-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/catholicpreaching\/6.11.20_Homily_1.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/catholicpreaching\/6.11.20_Homily_1.mp3\">https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/catholicpreaching\/6.11.20_Homily_1.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/catholicpreaching\/6.11.20_Homily_1.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/?powerpress_pinw=19515-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/catholicpreaching\/6.11.20_Homily_1.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"6.11.20_Homily_1.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fr. Roger J. Landry Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan Memorial of St. Barnabas June 11, 2020 Acts 11:21-26. 13:1-3, Ps 98, Mt 5:20-26 &nbsp; To listen to an audio recording of today\u2019s homily, please click below:\u00a0 https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/catholicpreaching\/6.11.20_Homily_1.mp3 &nbsp; The following points were attempted in the homily: Today in the Gospel, Jesus [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11775,1063,3,12314,4],"tags":[5930,5934,2796,2424,5933,5932,3021,1423,12022],"class_list":["post-19515","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-2019-2020-year-ii","category-audio-homily","category-homily","category-podcast","category-year-ii","tag-acts-1121-26-131-3","tag-antioch","tag-courage","tag-ps-98","tag-set-apart-for-me","tag-son-of-encouragement","tag-st-barnabas","tag-st-paul","tag-unless-your-righteousness-surpasses"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Barnabas&#039; Surpassing Righteousness, Memorial of St. Barnabas, June 11, 2020 - Catholic Preaching<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/barnabas-surpassing-righteousness-memorial-of-st-barnabas-june-11-2020\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Barnabas&#039; Surpassing Righteousness, Memorial of St. Barnabas, June 11, 2020 - Catholic Preaching\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Fr. Roger J. Landry Sacred Heart Convent of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan Memorial of St. Barnabas June 11, 2020 Acts 11:21-26. 13:1-3, Ps 98, Mt 5:20-26 &nbsp; To listen to an audio recording of today\u2019s homily, please click below:\u00a0 https:\/\/traffic.libsyn.com\/secure\/catholicpreaching\/6.11.20_Homily_1.mp3 &nbsp; The following points were attempted in the homily: Today in the Gospel, Jesus [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/barnabas-surpassing-righteousness-memorial-of-st-barnabas-june-11-2020\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Catholic Preaching\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-06-11T09:52:58+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-02-28T19:39:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/catholicpreaching.com\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/06\/st_barnabas-sm.gif\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fr. 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