Today we remember St Barnabas, Apostle, though, like his friend St Paul, he was not strictly speaking an apostle.

                                   Antiphon on Psalm 75

God does not judge by what the eye sees, 

but in truth and equity. 

 It was Barnabas who took Paul up to introduce him  to the Church in Jerusalem when he was still thought of as Saul, and he accom-panied Paul on his first mis-sionary journey. He and Paul had a falling out after his cousin John Mark bailed on them (for what reason we do not know) at Pamphylia and thereafter Barnabas, which means “son of encour-agement” and was actually a nickname, teamed up with Mark while Paul went off with Silas.  One thinks of the quip in AA - all you need to start a new meeting is a resentment and a coffee pot. What Carols’s Dad called “the people part.”