Salt and Light
In today’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that he expects them to be the “salt of the earth” and a “light for the world. We all know what salt is and what it does. We also are familiar with the need for light. However, if we try to understand Jesus’ comments from our 21st Century perspective, we will miss the most important part of this metaphor.
First of all, these people used salt in a completely different way than we do today. For us, salt is a table commodity and a way to melt ice on our roads. For the people of Jesus’ time, it was used as currency, to preserve their meat and fish, and as a catalyst. It is this last use that is probably what Jesus is referring to in his reflections on discipleship.
There isn’t a lot of wood in Israel nor is there any coal. When it came to fuel, the people of this time used something that was not in short supply. In fact it was all over the place. They used the dung of camels and donkeys which lay on the roads and in the fields. It was the responsibility of the children in a family to gather up the dung, to mix it with salt and to form it in to cakes or bricks which were then used as fuel in their ovens and in their hearths. Dung does not burn of itself. However, when mixed with salt, it burns quite effectively. Not only does it burn, the flames provide light. So while we may thing that these two metaphors are separate from each other, they really go hand in hand.
So what is Jesus asking of his disciples? He asking us to be a catalyst in this dark world in which we live. He is asking us to act in such a way that we inspire people to set the world on fire by living out the counsels of the Gospel. When people see us, they should see goodness at work. When people see that goodness, it offers them a way of looking at the world that is not cold and sinister. When people witness us giving a good Christian example, it fires them up, quite literally. That fire then can light up a world that is cold and has lost its sense of morality.
Today is also the World Day of Consecrated Life, a day on which we remember those men and women who have consecrated their lives to living out the evangelical counsels of poverty, chastity and obedience. The vows that we religious profess are simply an amplification of our baptismal commitment because, in truth, the Gospel counsels are for all of us. Depending upon our vocations, we live those counsels differently. On the first weekend of the month of February, scheduled to be close to the Feast of the Presentation of the Child Jesus in the Temple, we remember especially those who do it by following the “regular” life, a life according to a Rule (Regula) written by one of the great men or women of consecrated life (St. Augustine, St. Francis of Assisi, St. Benedict, St. Clare of Assisi, etc.).
Salt and Light, two commodities which are only useful when they are used in conjunction with other things, are apt examples of who and what we must be.
Fr. Lawrence Jagdfeld, O.F.M., Administrator
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