Mt 5,13-16
This Sunday’s Gospel is so rich in imagery and so powerful in its instruction for how we are to live our lives. Jesus teaches us using two common elements from our everyday experience. Who does not know about salt and light, as both elements have a big significance in the life of every human being, and most of all, in the life of all Christians?
Salt is a very potent component that has had a strong influence in the development of humanity through history. Salt is good to give flavor to the food we eat, it purifies our food, it prevents the corruption of certain foods which will spoil if they are not refrigerated, and at the same time if you eat too much salt, it causes you to get thirsty. These are important points, because in reality, that is the life of a Christian, that is what Jesus is in our lives.
Sometime people live morally compromised lives or have gotten accustomed to living in mediocrity and deceitfulness, imitating the spiritual poverty of the Pharisees. They need to be saved with the good news of Jesus. They need to be purified of their rotten ways, because otherwise they will keep on being rotten. I understand very well that it is hard to talk in these terms, but it is the spiritual life of the human being that is at stake.
The same happens with the practice of our faith, to which we have to give the flavor and taste of Jesus, otherwise our spiritual lives will be filled with empty rituals, without any real sense or value, they will turn into circus spectacles that will take us nowhere, that will not transform or change the corruption we have.
This part of the sermon is addressed to the apostles and disciples, they are the ones with the mission of salting the flour, which will turn to bread, to be food for many.
Jesus gives us a great responsibility. We are the salt of the world. This means that the world exists but in many cases it has no flavor. Life has become unbearable for many. Our mission is to keep the candle of faith lit in a world that has turned too technical, and too absorbed in accumulating wealth.
The world is the people who suffer. We are also the light of the world. The light is something immaterial, invisible. The light allows us to see but is itself invisible. The light is the Faith. Faith is not something we keep hidden to prevent from losing or for it to get damaged or deteriorate.
The more that light is shared, the bigger it gets. We
see people around us who say they don’t know what to do in life, they do not know how to manage their lives. Faith is always an invitation to look ahead, to go forward, to progress in the path of life, in union with Christ. We have light in ourselves as much as we accept the Light.
Our salvation comes from faith in Christ, but Christians must respond to that faith with good deeds. Only Christ saves, but that salvation needs to be announced and lived. The Gospel tells us that the light of faith, when it shines in front of the people, turns to praise the Father. We have to do our deeds in Faith.
Today’s world is tired of big words and all the theories that are offered to it. It seems as if people had no ears to listen to the transcendental. It is as if life is reduced to the answer that we want to obtain.
We have lost the sense of excitement and hope. To be the salt and the light of the world is reminding us, time and time again, about the project that the Lord has for humanity.
God does not want us to suffer anymore because Jesus took upon Himself all our pains, all our suffering. He does not want anymore violence because Jesus took all our punishments.
He does not want us to be disoriented because with His life, Jesus showed us the path to the Father. To be salt and light, is to be aware of all this and live it with joy.
Jesus points out heaven as the place of God and it is the truth. Heaven is God. Each person can have heaven close to him or her in their heart, in its spiritual throbbing, in the daily giving of himself or herself.
There is a space that only we can open to the Lord and to others. It is the field of our hearts and our lives. If I close myself off to Christ, if I do not let Him inside my heart, I will never understand that love, the love that loves me even when I ignore it.
To be salt and light is to be conscious, to be aware of the existence of that love. When salt dissolves, it turns invisible but the flavor endures. The light gets bigger and bigger when it is shared. The lighted wick of a candle will be the love of God, the origin of the light.
The light that comes from the candle wick and that illuminates the world is the fruit of that love. The mission of the human being is to keep on sharing that light with all the human beings of our times and of all times. That is our first and principal priority, to live in the truth, to live in the light and to live in it is to be that light and be that light with joy and excitement.
Then we will show the path to others, we have to become the brilliant torches that go in front, showing the way, that valuable path of truth.
I invite each one of you to be salt and light in this world that walks in darkness, without taste, without hope, without sense.
Amen!
No comments:
Post a Comment