Where “the Disciples Were First Called Christians”

Wednesday, June 11, 2008
Memorial of Saint Barnabas, Apostle
By Melanie Rigney
Barnabas looked for Saul in Tarsus, then brought him to Antioch. “For a whole year they met with the Church and taught a large number of people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called Christians.” (Acts 11:26)
Whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the Kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5:19)

Piety
Jesus, come into my heart and my soul. Guide my actions and thoughts so that I am truly worthy of being called Christian.

Study
Today's Readings
Interreligious Dialogue
What does it mean to be called Christian?
Seems fairly straightforward, doesn’t it? Believe in Christ and try to follow his ways. Yet, think of how revolutionary that year in Antioch was. Paul and Barnabas were so on fire with Christ’s message that large numbers of people understood that this was something new. “It was a new religion,” the Catholic Encyclopedia says, “new in its Founder, new in much of its creed, new in its attitude towards both God and man, new in the spirit of its moral code.” And today, more than two thousand years later, we continue to find this walk in Christ’s footsteps to be new and challenging. And at a micro level, we as Christian all too often are ignorant or suspicious of differences among our theologies.
According to a Zenit News Agency dispatch, Cardinal Jean Louis Tauran, president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue, detailed plans for a new guide to help Catholics engage in dialogue with other religions. The announcement came as part of the diacastery’s general assembly meeting last week. According to Zenit, the cardinal says the guidelines will be inspired by the Ten Commandments, which he called “universal grammar that all believers can use in their relationship with God and their neighbor.” The cardinal went on to say “all believers have a common patrimony: faith in one only God, the sacredness of life, the need for fraternity, and the experience of prayer, which is the language of religion.”
The preface to C. S. Lewis’s landmark Mere Christianity provides a guide of sorts, likening the search for Christianity to a hallway:
If I can bring anyone into that hall I shall have done what I attempted. But it is in the rooms, not in the hall, that there are fires and chairs and meals. The hall is a place to wait in, a place from which to try the various doors, not a place to live in. … When you have reached your own room, be kind to those who have chosen different doors and to those who are still in the hall. If they are wrong they need your prayers all the more; and if they are your enemies, then you are under orders to pray for them. That is one of the rules common to the whole house.
Let us strive to respect the space of others in this great House.

Action
Use the cardinal’s examples to open up interfaith dialogue with a friend this week. Discuss your “common patrimony” and close the conversation with the Lord’s Prayer.