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.

Homily for Friday, 7 June 2019– St. Kateri School Mass

Readings of the day: 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18; Responsorial Psalm: Mass with Children; Matthew 5:13-16

Friday of the 7th week of Easter

How many of us here like to eat the occasional salty food or snack? What are some of our favorite salty foods?

…

One of my favorite salty foods is tortilla chips. If tortilla chips are anywhere near me, I can very easily eat more of them than I probably should.

Yesterday morning I visited a few of your classrooms here at St. Kateri School. This brought back wonderful memories of when I was living here at St. Kateri Parish and would visit your classrooms and greet you at the front door most days. For four years now, which is way too many tortilla chips ago, not to mention other salty French foods like Paris’ own ham and butter sandwiches, I have been living and studying in Paris, France. One class I visited yesterday asked how old I am. When children ask me this question, I like to play a little game in which I ask the children to guess how old I am. No, I am not 103 years old… But I am probably at the age at which I should be more mindful of eating a good variety of healthy food: Not too much, not too little, not too sweet, and not too salty. The tortilla chip habit is difficult to break, though.

In fact, no matter how old we are, all of us could afford to be mindful of eating what we call a balanced diet. But in our Gospel today, from Matthew, Jesus asks us to do, or actually to be, something even more important than eating the right amount and kinds of every food, and not too many tortilla chips. Does anybody remember from the Gospel we have just heard: What, or who, does Jesus ask us to be? Who does Jesus say we already are and need to be more and more?

…

Jesus says that we “are the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world.” What does Jesus mean by calling us and asking us to be “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world”? God could have made us as great big light bulbs if God had wanted us to be light, or maybe those LED bulbs; they use less energy and are better for the environment, anyway. If God had wanted us to be salt, he could have made us as giant tortilla chips! Okay, that is not quite what Jesus means, but then how are we to be salt and light in our world?

In Jesus’ time, salt was very important for just about everything. It was used in food so it would not spoil, because there were no refrigerators back then. Salt was even used to pay people for their work, in place of coins and paper money. This is where the word “salary” comes from, to describe what somebody earns at her or his job. Even today, when we speak of people who are “worth their salt,” this means that they are to be trusted or do valuable, honest work.

Speaking of light, we started today’s Mass by singing the hymn, “We are Marching in the Light of God.” I especially love this song, because I learned it not only in English but in its original language, Zulu, while singing in a choir when I was in high school: “Siyahamba, ku-kan-yen’ kwen-khos, siyahamba, ku-kan-yen’ kwen-khos.” Not too many years ago, in South Africa, where this song comes from, this hymn was originally a song to protest the racism in much of the society and government there: People with dark skin were treated unfairly by people with lighter skin, because of the color of their skin. They could not buy land to farm to feed their families. They could not find work; could not “earn their salt,” so to speak, so the people protested by marching and singing peacefully, by “Marching in the Light of God.” And this worked to build a peaceful country with much less racism, violence, and injustice.

How, then, might we be called to march “in the light of God,” to be “salt of the earth” and “light of the world”? Here at St. Kateri School, do we not begin our day by praying for one another in our classrooms over the announcements, especially for people in our school community who are in any kind of need, who have experienced loss, who are hurt or sick? In our classrooms, do we ever notice our classmates who need extra help on their schoolwork; who need a friend; who need somebody to listen to them? How many of us, when we enter the school in the morning, hold the front door for the person entering behind us? These are a few ways in which we, at St. Kateri School, might be, as Jesus says we are and asks us to be even more, “salt of the earth” and “light of the world.”