(This article courtesy of the Arlington Catholic Herald.)
Images speak volumes! In a recent Gospel account, Jesus is using two very powerful images to describe who we are if indeed we are His followers: the images of salt and light. “You are the salt of the earth. … You are the light of the world.” For His original audience, salt and light were essential to everyday life. Salt was used as a preservative and also as a fertilizer in first-century Israel; it also gave flavor to food. There was no electricity in Jesus’ time; people used small dish-like instruments in which oil was burned as their lamps. These did not give much light, but they were a useful source of illumination and warmth. Even today, salt and light remain part of our daily living.
Notice that Jesus is telling His disciples, you and me this very day, that we are salt and light, not merely that we should be like salt and light. He is mandating us to be directly involved in the circumstances and events of daily life and, therefore, of our contemporary society. As He later told the apostles at the Last Supper, they, and we, are to be in the world but not of the world. Coming immediately after the opening section of His Sermon on the Mount, recorded in Chapter 5 of St. Matthew’s Gospel, and proclaimed as the beatitudes, Jesus’ mandate to us about being salt and light becomes the tangible expression and implementation of those beatitudes. When we truly are poor in spirit, meek, merciful, clean of heart, peacemaking, to name but several, then we do bring flavor and illumination to the society in which we live.
Because we are to be salt and light in those very real arenas in which we live, work and interact — the family, the office, the neighborhood, the community, then, we must be filled with the presence of Christ and know well His teachings. We must ring true as we strive to proclaim the Gospel of life and of charity. Our efforts to end the attacks on human life, beginning with abortion and partial-birth abortion; to eliminate the causes of racism and poverty; to prevent domestic abuse and violence in society: these are rooted in our obedient response to be salt and light in our society, so much in need of the flavor and light of the Truth! Living the Christian life is not purely a private matter. As our Holy Father reminds us, the Church, and that means you and I, seeks not to impose but to propose the Truth which gives fresh flavor and guiding light to all people in their search for meaning and purpose.
So again, if we are to be the salt and light as Christ desires and mandates us to be, we must ring true, that is, we must be like Him. “You are salt…. You are light”: this mandate was first said to us at our baptism. For most of us, being baptized into Christ Jesus and becoming members of His Body, the Church, took place years ago. For some of us present this morning, the final preparations for becoming baptized or for completing full initiation into the Church are taking place. Lent has just begun. Lent is the season for all of us already baptized to become more deeply renewed in our relationship with Christ and His Church and to become recommitted to living out more faithfully our baptismal consecration and promises. Indeed, Lent is the season when we live more intensely the Christian life we should be living all year long. I invite all of us to enter into this 40-day annual retreat with enthusiasm and determination to become more authentic followers of Jesus, so that we can truly be salt and light in our daily living and through our contemporary witness.
