St. Barnabas Memorial
Knights of Columbus State Deputies Meeting
June 11, 2022
New Haven, CT
The Importance of Good Co-Workers
As you prepared for your roles of leadership in the Order, you no doubt thought carefully about who your co-workers would be. Who would comprise the team of State Officers? Who would serve as State Chaplain? To whom would you turn for advice, encouragement, and consolation? All of us, myself included, know how important it is to have good co-workers.
But what constitutes a good co-worker? Is it someone who agrees with us, whether we’re right or wrong? Manifestly not! Is a good co-worker necessarily a close friend? Not necessarily. Is a good co-worker someone who will do whatever is needed, whenever it is needed? I think the answer to that is “yes” – and it is a wonderful grace to have such a co-worker! Is a good co-worker someone who is devoted to the mission? Someone who is willing to sacrifice for it? Someone who carries it out with integrity? “Bingo!” as we often say in church halls! That’s who we’re looking for!
Paul Finds a Good Co-Worker
Providentially, God raised up just such a co-worker for Saint Paul, namely, Barnabas, whose feast day we celebrate today. The reading from the Acts of the Apostles tells us that Barnabas was sent to Antioch where eventually he joined with Paul, a.k.a. “Saul”. Paul and Barnabas spent a year raising up and instructing the Christian community and then travelling around cities in Asia Minor and Cyprus preaching the Gospel. Paul and Barnabas were very effective. They must have been quite the team!
If we read further in the Acts of the Apostles, we would find that Paul and Barnabas suffered greatly in fulfilling their mission. They would begin preaching in synagogues where they met stiff opposition. Undeterred, they expanded their preaching to include the Gentiles. In place after place, they were stoned and beaten. They were often in great need. Indeed, they more than fulfilled what Jesus said in today’s Gospel when he instructed his disciples to take little or nothing on their missionary journeys. As co-workers in the Lord, Paul and Barnabas rejoiced to suffer for the Gospel and continued to preach the Gospel courageously, until the day they were martyred.
Barnabas was Paul’s good co-worker, indeed the best co-worker anyone could have, because he was utterly devoted to the Risen Lord and the mission of evangelization, also because he was willing to sacrifice himself for the sake of the mission, and because he carried out that mission with selfless love and deepest integrity. What’s more, he lived up to his name, for we are told that Barnabas means “son of encouragement” or “son of consolation”. Paul and the Christian community found encouragement and solace in Barnabas who held high the banner of Christian hope even in desperate situations. Thus, from time immemorial the Church has honored Barnabas as “an apostle” and mentions his name among the apostles in the Roman Canon (1st Eucharistic Prayer).
Being and Finding Good Co-Workers
Leadership, I daresay, is all about being such a good co-worker that you attract other good co-workers to join you in mission. Or to put it another way, to have good co-workers you have to be a good co-worker. In other words, we have to model what we would like to see in those we work with. This does not mean that co-workers will always agree with us. Rather, the working relationship will be built on truth and integrity. Nor does it mean that co-workers will necessarily be our closest friends. It helps when “the chemistry” works, (as they say) but a cozy, partisan, us-against-them relationship at best gets in the way and at worst undermines the mission.
What applies in general to leadership in both Church and the wider society applies in particular to leadership in the Knights of Columbus. As Officers and State Deputies, we must not only lead but also model leadership. Here, I’m not talking about the leadership we read about in business journals but they kind of leadership we see in Paul and Barnabas, the kind of leadership we see in our beloved founder, Father McGivney, and the kind leadership we see in Ukraine, Africa, and all those places where the Church is suffering and where new martyrs are being created. This is the “leadership institute” of Paul and Barnabas!
And we recoil! I wrote these words in the comfort of a hotel room and you are listening to them in comfortable circumstances. Yet, in this post-original sin world, we have to face facts that to accomplish the mission of the Knights of Columbus we are going to have to sacrifice not only time and convenience, but also experience challenges and difficulties that are personally costly, and we are going to have to speak up for the Lord, for the Gospel, and for the Order without counting the cost, without regard for the opprobrium it may bring us. Indeed, as this old world continues its daily rotation, it is becoming more and more unfashionable to be a Christian, let alone a Catholic, and not only unfashionable but in many quarters, it is intolerable. The times we are in are becoming more like the era of Paul and Barnabas when preaching the Gospel, even on the fringes of the Empire was risky business. This calls for leadership that is both creative and courageous – and whose Source is the crucified and risen Lord met in the Eucharist.
You might ask, “Archbishop, aren’t you supposed to be “a son of encouragement”? You’re scaring the living daylights out of us! Not so, I hope! Rather, I want to say that we need to support and encourage one another, and if we are strong in our faith and strong in fulfilling the mission of the Order, we will encourage those good co-workers who will in turn encourage us. Instead of shrinking away as secular culture continues its march toward domination, we will stay the course, we will grow strong in faith and in numbers, and like Paul and Barnabas, we will add large numbers to the Lord, to the Church, and to the Order – to the glory of God the Father. Vivat Jesus!