Homily for Tuesday, 8 June 2021– Ferial

Readings of the day: 2 Corinthians 1:18-22; Psalm 119:129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 135; Matthew 5:13-16

Tuesday of the 10th week in Ordinary Time

Vatican II’s Lumen Gentium devotes an entire chapter—a short chapter of only four articles, but still a full chapter—to what it calls “the universal call to holiness.”

And, although today’s Gospel never uses the term “universal call to holiness,” I think Matthew communicates a similar idea to “the universal call to holiness” through Jesus’ comparatively pithy metaphors of salt and light. Holiness, and every Christian’s call to holiness, is twofold: First, God calls each of us to strive for personal holiness. Second, as we strive for and attain personal holiness, God calls us to encourage one another toward the same holiness.

So what does this have to do with salt and light? Salt preserves and adds flavour to food. If we are “salt of the earth,” somehow we are preserving and building up one another in ways of holiness and our imitation of Christ as the ultimate example to us of personal holiness. Salt not only adds its own flavour to food, but it can also draw out flavours that are naturally in the food already. So it is when we recognize particular traits of holiness, or talent especially for service to others’ well-being, and encourage other people—encourage ourselves, as members of a local religious community—to exercise those traits or talents.

Light may correspond more closely to our own striving for personal holiness. Jesus says, “You are the light of the world… Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” If we are to be salt, that is, if we are to recognize and encourage others to draw out their gifts, talents, traits of particular, holiness, then we first are invited to be light, that is, to recognize and exercise our own gifts God has given us as a way to holiness.

To be “light of the world”; to display our light “on the lampstand” is not to be boastful of our own holiness or strengths. After all, our holiness; our talents; our particular gifts and strengths are from God. In a homily for Epiphany a few years ago, Pope Francis began with a reference to St. Ambrose of Milan’s Hexameron, or commentary on Genesis’ six days of creation. St. Ambrose compares us, the Church, to the moon. Our light is not our own, but we reflect the light of God as the moon reflects the sun’s light. But neither is the moon “ashamed” to be merely the reflector of sunlight; the light of the sun gives the moon its particular beauty, which every other object and living being observes. Besides, we would blind ourselves if we were to look directly at the sun. Likewise, when we perceive the beauty of God, we are usually perceiving it as reflected through something or somebody. Our holiness depends on how good we are as “reflectors” of God.

Lumen Gentium 41 invites us as Christians to “walk unhesitatingly according to [our] own personal gifts and duties in the path of the living faith, which arouses hope and works though charity.” In other words, be salt that preserves others and draws out of others particular gifts of holiness from God. At the same time, be light; be “reflectors” of God’s light, not so much that others will say “look at us,” but “look at God” because of the beauty of God that is evident in the holiness of God’s faithful.