Jesus calls his followers to be salt of the earth and light of the world in Sunday’s gospel. These images express the mission of the Church in the world today. To what do salt and light call us?
Salt gives potatoes, burgers, chips, bread more flavor. A little salt flavors a whole dish.
Everybody uses salt. It’s common. Salt of the earth people don’t put on airs. They live like Jesus in their families and at work. They help others and appreciate help. They do the right thing and treat others honestly and respectfully. They live Jesus’ basic teaching—love one another as I have loved you.
Salt also preserves. People salt their money away in bonds. Before refrigeration, people dried and salted meat to keep it edible for trips and voyages. The salt image envisions Church as a community that preserves Jesus’ teaching by living it.
As individual grains of salt, Christians are small, but together as a community Christians can flavor the whole. The image of salt calls Christians to become the flavor of love in the activities of the world.
Our sun is the reason life arises on Earth. Sunlight calls forth life. Trees turn the sunlight into the air we breathe. Sun ripens the vegetables and fruits we eat.
Light allows us to see. It contains all the colors of the rainbow. It symbolizes unity in diversity.
People light up when someone reaches out in friendship or when they suddenly get an idea. To light up in this sense means we see on people’s faces their invisible feelings. We think of our conscious awareness as inner light.
The light in a lighthouse or in a window becomes a beacon that points the way home or points the way around danger. In directing followers not to hide their light under a basket, Jesus challenges us to radiate his teachings and become a beacon to others.
Christine lets her light shine by following her interest in foods, immersing herself in other cultures, and discovering new green ways to live. She wants to learn from everyday people who farm and fish and grow their own food. She is creating an ethic that honors creation and seeks to preserve it like salt.
The word for Church in Latin is ecclesia, which means an assembly. The Church is both a global community with headquarters in the Vatican and the local Christian communities that exist in dioceses and parishes. Within parishes each Christian adds flavor and shines forth with the light of Christ, according to his or her gifts.
The Church originates with the disciples Jesus gathers and teaches during his public ministry. These men and women accompany Jesus as he brings the good news from village to village.
Jesus commissions twelve to take the good news of his resurrection to the ends of the earth. Twelve is the number of the tribes of Israel. Symbolically Jesus is sending out apostles to all the peoples of Earth.
The Church is one because it has one founder in Jesus Christ, one Spirit, one faith. The Church is holy because Jesus empowers believers with his self-giving love and gives us the Spirit to teach and sanctify us. The Church is apostolic because our bishops trace their teaching back to the apostles Jesus taught. The Church is catholic because it reaches out to all peoples in all cultures.
His disciples form Jesus’ true family. They are the seed and beginning of God’s kingdom on Earth. “To those whom he gathered around him, he taught a new ‘way of acting’ and a prayer of their own.”
Catechism of the Catholic Church #764