Salt and Light

YOU ARE THE SALT OF THE EARTH AND THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD.

Once people asked a spiritual master and asked, “Master, what is the greatest hindrance to Christianity in our country?”

The Master looked at them and said, “Christians”. Yes, Christians who do not deepen their faith in the teachings of Christ become the hindrance to Christianity.

And in today’s gospel, Jesus asks his disciples to be salt and light to make this world a better place to live.

The important functions of salt are preserving food from going bad and adding taste to food.

1. The important function of a Christian in the world is protecting the world from bad, keeping the world a holy and divine place where others may find and experience God and His unconditional love. Once an old carpenter decided to quite his job so he went to his contractor and said, “ as you know, I am getting old and I need time to be with my family and friends so I have decided to terminate my work”. The contractor knew that he was a very good and faithful worker, so he said, “ Since you are going to terminate from your work, why don’t you build one more house. This will be your last house”. So the carpenter accepted but he was not that interested to build it so he used all cheap materials to build it. When the carpenter finished the job, the employer came to inspect the house and then he handed the key to the carpenter and said, “This is your house… my gift to you”. The carpenter was shocked. He said to himself, “ If I had only known that I was building it for me… I would have done it well” The world is our house and we are the carpenters what we make and build will directive affect our living. As followers of Christians we have to preserve the world and make it a better place to live.


2. As salt we are called to add taste and flavor to the world. By our life and example, we are called to add flavor to our society and community. Once day a son and his father were waking on the mountains. And the son fell and hurt himself and he began to cry. Then his cry reflected. He then asked, “who are you?” the he heard a voice saying, “who are you?” he looked at his dad and asked, dad what is going on here. The dad said, “son, people call this echo but really this is life” what we give, we get back and that is why we are asked to add more flavor to other’s life and then our life would be meaningful and tasteful. Then the son understood the meaning of life. Yes, we are called to be the salt of the earth and thus preserve the goodness in others and add flavors to others’ life.


3. The Jesus asks his disciples to be the light of the world. Jesus himself is the light and He says anyone who follows me will have light of life. We who follow the light will become one. Light cannot be hidden. It will shine in the dark. There is a beautiful story of St. Anthony of Padova. He was a very pious and active monk and He used to help in the kitchen such as making meals, cleaning the floor for other monks. He found god in his every day work and one day his superior who supposed to preach the gospel got sick and there were no monks around, so he called st. Anthony and said, though you do not know much about preaching, I appoint you to preach the gospel to the people only today. St. Anthony who was a very humble monk preached the good news and the way he preached and the way he talked about Christ inspired every one there. From that day onwards St. Anthony went the whole Europe preaching the good news. Yes, light cannot be hidden. We are called to shine before the world.


4. Conclusion: As we celebrate the death and resurrection of Christ, let us commit ourselves to the love and kindness of Christ our lord and shine before others and the world. Amen.