At his weekly public audience on January 31, Pope Benedict XVI continued his series of talks on the apostolic Church, concentrating on St. Paul’s missionary companions: Barnabas, Silas, and Apollos.The differences among these evangelists, which even rose to the level of serious disputes, show that even saints have faults, the Holy Father remarked.
“Sanctity does not consist in never having made mistakes or sinned. Sanctity grows in the capacity for conversion and penance, of willingness to start again and, above all, in the capacity for reconciliation and forgiveness."
Speaking to about 6,000 people in the Paul VI auditorium, the Holy Father noted that Barnabas was an early ally of St. Paul-- testifying to the genuine conversion that Saul had undergone-- who participated in the Council of Jerusalem. But Paul and Barnabas had a major disagreement at the outset of the 2nd missionary journey, and parted ways.
"Even among saints differences, discord and controversies arise," the Pope observed. That fact is a source of “consolation,” he added, because ordinary Christians, conscious of their own sinfulness, can realize that the saints had their own weaknesses.
Silas was apparently a skillful mediator between Christians of Jewish ancestry and those from the Gentiles, the Pope continued. And Apollos was “a cultured man, well versed in the Scriptures.” As St. Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “All have different tasks in the fields of the Lord.”
The Pope concluded with the observation that St. Paul’s observation on the diversity of gifts is equally valid in the Church today.
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