Salt of the earth...light of the world

"You are the salt of the earth!
You are the light of the world!" (Mt 5:13-14)

On a hillside near the lake of Galilee, Jesus' disciples listened to his gentle and urgent voice; as gentle as the landscape of Galilee itself, as urgent as a call to choose between life and death, between truth and falsehood. The Lord spoke words of life that would echo forever in the hearts of his followers. Today he is speaking the same words to you. Listen to the voice of Jesus in the depths of our hearts! His words tell us who we are as Christians. They tell us what we must do to remain in his love.

Light of Christ, true light chases darkness of illusions, pretence of life
But Jesus offers one thing, and the "spirit of the world" offers another. In the Letter to the Ephesians, Saint Paul tells us that Jesus leads us from darkness into light (cf. Eph 5,8). Perhaps the great Apostle is thinking of the light that blinded him, the persecutor of Christians, on the road to Damascus. When later he recovered his sight, nothing was as before. He had been born anew and nothing would ever take his new-found joy away from him. We too are called to be transformed. "Awake, O sleeper, arise from the dead, and Christ will give you light" (Eph 5, 14), says Saint Paul.

The "spirit of the world" offers many false illusions and parodies of happiness. There is perhaps no darkness deeper than the darkness that enters people's souls when false prophets extinguish in them the light of faith and hope and love. The greatest deception, and the deepest source of unhappiness, is the illusion of finding life by excluding God, of finding freedom by excluding moral truths and personal responsibility.

Decision between light and darkenss
The Lord is calling us to choose between these two voices competing for our souls. That decision is the substance and challenge we face as Christians. Why do we come together from all parts of the world on Sundays? To say in our hearts: "Lord, to whom shall we go?" Who has the words of eternal life? "You have the words of eternal life" (Jn 6,68). Jesus, the intimate friend of every person, has the words of life. The world we are inheriting is a world which desperately needs a new sense of brotherhood and human solidarity. It is a world which needs to be touched and healed by the beauty and richness of God's love. It needs witnesses to that love. The world needs salt. It needs us to be the salt of the earth and the light of the world.

Salt is used to preserve and keep. As apostles for the Third Millennium, our task is to preserve and keep alive the awareness of the presence of our Savior Jesus Christ. We must keep alive the memory of the words of life which he spoke, the marvelous works of mercy and goodness which he performed. We must constantly remind the world of the "power of the Gospel to save" (Rom 1, 16)!
Salt seasons and improves the flavor of food. Following Jesus, we have to change and improve the "taste" of human history. With our faith, hope and love, with our intelligence, courage and perseverance, we have to humanize the world we live in, in the way that Isaiah indicates: "loose the bonds of injustice ... share your bread with the hungry ... remove the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil.... Then your light shall rise in the darkness" (Is 58,6-10).

Keep hope alive, the Father loves us, makes us into image of his Son
We are young and we are old. But we all still fully identify with each other’s hopes and aspirations. Although some have lived through much darkness, all have seen enough evidence to be unshakably convinced that no difficulty, no fear is so great that it can completely suffocate the hope that springs eternal in the hearts of all people. Do not let that hope die! Stake your lives on it! We are not the sum of our weaknesses and failures; we are the sum of the Father's love for us and our real capacity to become the image of his Son.