Fifth Sunday in Ordinary Time

To Be Salt and Light

Salt and light are enhancing materials. We don’t cook salt; we cook with salt. Salt makes things taste better, taste differently, blend flavors, and sometimes to contrast, as in sweet and salty.

As a Christian, if I am to be the salt of the earth, I must make something else appeal to the taste of others, of my neighbors. That something else would be God. Together we will savor the goodness of God. That is why we sing or proclaim “Taste and see the goodness of the Lord.”

When Jesus says “your light must shine before others,” we tend to think that Jesus does the shining in the darkness. Actually, we are to be the light that reflects Jesus. As disciples, we have the responsibility to bring the light of Jesus into the darkness. We bring light whenever we bring compassion to those experiencing suffering or misery. We can bring light to conversations that are filled with prejudice and ignorance, demeaning or destructive of the dignity of any person. We must enlighten the gloom of politics we experience today.

Salt and light are about tasting and seeing the goodness of the Lord. Isaiah tells us how we can do that in our actions of caring for others, of meeting the needs of our neighbors and those who belong to us. We have the invitation to practice the Corporal Works of Mercy. And we pray that Light will help us to see things that are otherwise obscure to us, to see situations in new ways, to see and understand why others might think differently. We pray that the Holy Spirit guides us to be a community of Salt and Light.