The Gospel of this, the 5th Sunday of Ordinary Time says to us, “You are the salt of the earth; but if salt has lost its taste, how can its saltiness be restored…You are the light of the world…no one after lighting a lamp puts it under a bushel basket.” I’d like to explore with you these themes in today’s homily.
Let us start with the theme of salt. For most of us here, salt stands in a little shaker at home, and is mainly used as a seasoning: you season your food with salt, hopefully not too much. Some are on sodium-reduced diets, where they cannot take too much salt. In the ancient world, however, salt was not only used to season food, but it had another very important use: salt preserved food, salt kept food from spoiling. Perhaps some older people here would remember salted meat, salty pork, in the days before refrigerators. In our days, we still use salted butter, because it tastes better, and stays fresh longer. In a similar way, Christians are the salt that is to keep the world from decay. In the words of St. Hilary, Father of the Church, “The Apostles are preachers of heavenly things…they, as it were, salt and preserve bodies for eternity” (Catena Aurea, St. Thomas Aquinas ed., vol. 1, pg. 144, 2014). You can imagine the Apostles and their successors going around with a big salt shaker, salting people, preserving them for eternity, and spreading the word that leads to eternal life.
St. John Chrysostom, another great Father of the Church has this comment to make on this Gospel passage. He writes, “It is not for you…to flatter and deal smoothly with men, but, on the contrary, to be rough and biting as salt is” (Catena Aurea, St. Thomas Aquinas ed., vol. 1, pg. 144, 2014). We are not to go out and purposely offend people, but it is the job of a Christian, and of pastors of souls especially, to say the words that people don’t necessarily want to hear. We are to preach the truths that are sometimes hard to take, the truths that have become unpopular. Perhaps one of these hard-to-take truths is that God wants all people to become his children. God the Father wants to gather His children into his Church, the Catholic Church, through baptism, and He wants to keep people, preserve them for eternal life, through the graces that flow from the Church. In his mysterious plan, God has decided to expand his family, through the Church. Our opening prayer said, “Keep your family safe, O Lord.” The liturgy, the Holy Mass, gathers God’s family. One commentator stated, “God’s Fatherhood is the deepest mystery of his identity; from eternity he fathers a divine Son, and throughout history he adopts us as his children in Christ” (Ignatius Catholic Study Bible New Testament, Scott Hahn ed., pg. 15, 2010). Why would this truth be a hard one to take? Because the spirit of the world says, “Don’t have God as your Father, be your own man, your own woman. Be independent. Having God as your Father limits your freedom. You are your own destiny, you shape your future, you decide yourself.” The spirit of the world says, “pick your own truth, pick your own philosophy, pick your own gender, pick the date of your death, shape your own reality, you have the power to self-actualize, according to your rules." That is the spirit of the world. The Gospel says instead, “no, you are not fatherless, you are not completely independent, you have God as your Father.” As St. John the Evangelist states, “To all who have received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God” (John 1:12). The first thing that we need to do is bow our heads in worship, and then accept the fact that we are adopted children of God the Father. We need to maintain that status through the grace we receive from the Church. We can then shine with light before our brothers and sisters, so that they can give glory to God the Father.
Brothers and sisters, let us not be salt that has lost its taste, its flavour. Let us not be a lamp that is shining under a basket. It is good to be part of God’s own family, of God’s own household. As we bow our heads in worship before the living God, let us imitate the faith of Mary, the Mother of God. She was the one who did not want to draw attention to Herself, she did not want praise for Herself. Her good works shone so that people seeing Her could give glory to God. Even today, she focuses attention on Her Son, and does not seek it for Her own benefit. Mary’s humility is a source of strength and power. Let us entrust ourselves to Her maternal protection.
(Fr. Paweł Ratajczak, OMI, Feb. 5, 2023)