The Gospel passage this weekend is taken from the “Sermon on the Mount” corpus, and immediately follows Jesus’ proclamation of the Beatitudes, the ordinary and necessary precepts for a true Christian life. St. Matthew recounts that Jesus ascended the mountain from where He taught the people who gathered around it in order to listen to Him.
This reminds us of Moses, the Lawgiver, who received from God and carried down the Law from Mount Sinai in order to teach the people who were waiting to hear what the Lord had to say at the foot of the mountain; it also reminds us of the wise King Solomon who, from his throne on Mount Zion, dispensed justice enabled by Divine wisdom to Israel. Jesus is both the new Moses and the new Solomon, a Divine legislator and a king imbued with Divine wisdom to cause the completion and fulfillment of the Law of Moses and to establish the Reign of God, a state of life where the perfect will of God is done.
Salt and light are well known agents of change. Apart from providing a change in taste, salt possesses purifying and preservative properties that cause the initial state of food to change when applied. At the time Jesus employed the imagery of salt to describe His disciples, the Jewish cultic priests made heavy use of it, sprinkling salt on sacrifices as a symbol of purity and as a seasoning and preservative for the sacrificial meat intended for human consumption. Thus, when Jesus declared that His disciples were Salt of the Earth, He simply intended them to know they were sacred agents of positive change introduced into a “tasteless” world of ungodliness, injustice and vice, in order to purify it, positively influence it and preserve the reign of God in it. However, Jesus warned that should the salt of the earth lose its taste, its distinctive character and the purpose for which it is needed, it would be fit only to be used for traction on roads. Should individual Christians and the Church lose their propensity for good and love, we would simply degenerate into empty hypocrites that should best be ignored. Here we need to ask ourselves if the world is not trampling us underfoot. When the world keeps reminding the hierarchy of the Church to be true to her own moral standards, when unbelievers have to remind Catholic politicians that life begins from conception, when friends have to remind you to be there for your aged parents, when your own children draw your attention to sinful or morally unacceptable behavior, when Atheists have to invite us to be charitable and kind, and when unbelievers have to literally drag us into being aware and responding to the unjust and unfair treatment of people on the fringes of life in our world and sometimes in our communities, we do not need a prophet to tell us that we have become salt that has lost its taste.
Similarly, light possesses disinfectant and preservative properties. The tiniest glimmer of light in the midst of darkness cannot go unnoticed. Our world is plagued with the darkness of sin, immorality, violence, injustice and many other evils, the Christian and the Church cannot afford to abdicate her mandate to be the sign of hope, truth and peace in a world that is yearning for light. Through faith, hope and love, the Church, and indeed each individual Christian is called to be the beacon of light raised high, shining throughout the world and giving all people cause to glorify God. The Church throughout history and in spite of her numerous failures and weaknesses, has utilized the instrument of Catholic hospices, hospitals, schools, universities, shelters, kitchens, orphanages, to bring hope and healing to many and to prick the consciences even of unbelievers into creating such institutions of their own. However, each of us should ask ourself, “Am I letting the light of my personal good deeds shine before others as a witness to the Gospel, thereby inspiring people to glorify my heavenly Father?”
May the Grace of God aid us to be joyful agents of positive change in our community.
Please be kind and may God bless you.
Fr. Manasseh
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