As you can tell from the color of my face, I just returned last night from my annual winter get-away, much needed after the busy Christmas season here at our wonderful, very active parish. While I was enjoying the sun at the beach in San Martin, I read a new biography of our patron saint, Catherine of Siena. It’s an excellent, critically-written work by Don Brophy, a former editor of the Paulist Press. I highly recommend it. In it, you will read about the many metaphors that St. Catherine used to speak about our faith and how we are to live it, most famously the metaphor of Christ crucified as the bridge between us and God. Again, I highly recommend this book to you for your spiritual development and to learn about our patron saint.
In today’s gospel, we hear Jesus use two powerful metaphors. “You are the salt of the earth,” we just heard Jesus declare. In his time, salt was as good as gold. It was so valuable that Roman soldiers were paid in salt. The Latin word for salt is “sal,” from which we derive the word salary, drawing from this ancient Roman form of payment for services rendered. The soldiers did not complain when they were paid in this way. Salt was unbelievably valuable not just as a seasoning but as medicine and as a preservative, so important in a time before refrigeration. It was used in temple worship and in sacrifice to the Roman gods.
Although ancient Israel was rather insignificant as a nation, surrounded by Assyria, Babylon and Egypt, it had one feature that made it a world player: it was sitting on the largest deposit of salt in the Empire – the Dead Sea, the lowest point on earth. Those of you who have been there have enjoyed bobbing in the very salty water of the Dead Sea. It’s quite an experience. In our Lord’s time, the salt was harvested from the Dead Sea. Harvesters would scoop saltwater from that sea into large vats and, through a lengthy process the water eventually evaporated leaving only the pure mineral behind. Salt that was not pure was of no value and was discarded but pure salt was invaluable. The people in Jesus’ day could understand this image very easily; so can we.
Jesus goes on to use another very easy to understand image when he says “you are the light of the world.” We all know how important light is to us. Just stub your toe in the darkness in an unfamiliar room and you are painfully reminded how much you rely on light.
Jesus warned us against the salt that loses its flavor and ends up in the trash – thrown out and trampled underfoot. This is what happens when our life is contaminated by sin and worldly attachments, or when we focus only on our needs and neglect those of others around us.
The prophet Isaiah tells us how we can be salt and light for others: feed them, clothe them, house them, never turning our back on them. Those willing to help others will receive help from on high, he assures us. Conversely, those who will not give help should not expect to receive it from God.
Much like the process that purifies the salt, our everyday trials can purify us from all that is not of God so that what remains is of him, from him, and for his glory. The apostle Paul experienced this process of purification in his work on behalf of the Church. We hear him today as he writes to the Corinthians about how he came to them in weakness and fear and much trembling, aware that his own words were not persuasive or wise. Instead, his message and proclamation were a demonstration of the light of the Spirit and power of the Spirit working through him. Paul experienced a lifelong process of conversion that brought him from darkness to light, and from death to new life. And, he wanted to share that same light with everyone he met on his missionary journeys.
God desires that same transformation of faith for all of us, that we, too, may come out of the shadows and live in the light and the love of God in Christ Jesus. The prophet Isaiah makes crystal clear in today’s first reading that, as God’s chosen people, sharing his light, we are to be a people of light. As he challenges us with his instruction to “share your bread with the hungry, shelter the oppressed and the homeless, clothe the naked” he assures us that “light shall rise for you in the darkness.” In a world where we enjoy comfort and ease the likes of which most of the world can’t even imagine, so many live in the darkness of self-centeredness and isolation. So much so that many have come to embrace darkness – the darkness of self-indulgence, of pornography, of drugs, of violence, of lies, of abortion.
Our ever-loving God wants us to live in his light and this happens when we rejoice in the great gifts God has given us in abundance and then let our “light shine before others,” as we hear our Lord, Jesus, admonish us in today’s gospel. Jesus challenges us to embrace the ultimate antidote to all of the darkness in the world. He calls us to develop lives of gratitude, selflessness and generosity. He shines a beacon of hope in the midst of this darkness that surrounds us, and tells us, “your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.” And so, as we have experienced so well over the Christmas holidays, we generously get involved in our Adopt-a-Family and Christmas Food Basket and Giving Tree initiatives. Throughout the year, we shine our light before others in a variety of other ways. From our school supply drives, food drives, parish youth groups and Close-knit Community activities, we reach out to give school supplies, food and clothing to those in need.
Jesus goes on to challenge us even further. We are also to be salt – the “salt of the earth.” It’s difficult for us today to understand how critically essential salt was to the people of the ancient world. The great early civilizations first developed not only close to water, but also to salt resources. As I mentioned a moment ago, the ability of salt to preserve food was a requirement for people of that time before refrigeration.
But beyond this, salt gives flavor to food. And that’s what Jesus emphasizes. We are to become people who bring a whole new taste to the world in which we live. We are to bring “the flavor of God” to all that we do and say. Light and salt are closely connected. From Jesus’ point of view, the more we create a “God flavor” to life, the more we become light. We dispel the darkness we find around us. That new taste, that new “God flavor” becomes contagious. It spreads. It multiplies.
When you were baptized, a candle was lit from the Easter candle. This candle represents Christ, the light of the world. And the priest prayed over you: “This light is entrusted to you to be kept burning brightly. ..May you walk always as a child of the light.” God has passed the light of the heavens on to you and to me. Let each of us hold our lives “in the light” and illumine the world we live in by flavoring it with the taste of God.