Now isn’t that a tall order. Not at all and if you stop and think about it for a moment, you will see why. What is salt used for? It adds taste to foods that are being prepared and can be used as a preservative as well. The reference to salt goes on to where it says that if salt goes bad it’s good for nothing, so it’s thrown out and trample it under foot. Salt cannot go bad but if other things are attached to it, that’s when we want to throw it out because the other things on the salt will probably ruin the taste of the food we are preparing. We’re like that. All of the negative attitudes that we pick up from our environment can negatively affect us and consequently our ability to contribute positively to the society and world we live in. We can restore the sodium chloride (salt) that we are with a visit to a priest, the representative of God and of the church family we are part of, confess those sins and be made pure again. Nobody has to live as bad salt, we just need an attitude change and with the help of God’s grace, we can make the change.

We are the light of the world as referenced in the First Reading from the Book of the Prophet Isaiah, in the Psalm and in the Gospel. Light is really hard to hide. Put a light under a bushel basket and light will escape somewhere, somehow. When each of us was baptized, our Godparents were given a candle lit from the Pascal (Easter) candle and the presider (priest or deacon) says:

“Receive the light of Christ. Parents and Godparents this light is entrusted to you to be kept burning brightly. This child of yours has been enlightened by Christ. He/She is to walk always as a child of the light. May he/she keep the flame of faith alive in his/her heart.  When the Lord comes, may he/she go out to meet him with all the saints in the heavenly kingdom.”  (The Rite of Baptism of Children 1989 , CCCB)

I think it goes beyond that with our responsibility as Baptized people. We have a responsibility to not only make the light of Christ in us shine but we have the added responsibility to bring out that glow in others. Looking at the ground or at the floor as we walk past someone does little to nothing. The most important lesson I learned early on in my teaching career was to look at the students, make eye contact and acknowledge them. You are allowing the God who lives in you to shine and you’re allowing the God alive in them to shine on you. We need to do that for each other and not just while we’re at mass at St. Monica, St Andrew or wherever but everywhere. When I go for a walk, I have the habit of counting the number of people who say “Hi” or “Hello” and those who just look down, away or what seems to be right through me as we pass each other. Knowing everyone who is at mass is virtually impossible in an open parish but wouldn’t it be nice if when mass began, we turned and made eye contact with the people around us, we did it again as we exchanged the peace of Christ, as we receive Holy Communion or a blessing and finally as we leave the church/Holy Gym. If we do that, we are living today’s Gospel: we become the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

Deacon Ray