Fr. Roger J. Landry
Visitation Mission of the Sisters of Life, Manhattan
Tuesday of the Tenth Week in Ordinary Time, Year I
June 9, 2021
2 Cor 1:18-22, Ps 119, Mt 5:13-16
To listen to an audio recording of today’s homily, please click below:
The following points were attempted in today’s homily:
- There’s an important prehistory to today’s first reading, taken from St. Paul’s Second Letter to the Corinthians. Paul had promised to make a return visit to Corinth, but because of sufferings and hardship he had not yet been able to come. Those who were opposed to his message of conversion took upon themselves to try to persuade others that he was unreliable: if he couldn’t even be trusted to keep his word about whether he would be coming to Corinth, how could anything else he said — about God, for example — be reliable? Paul wrote that the source of his veracity is found in God. “As God is faithful,” he said, and then he gave a beautiful witness to how Jesus is the fulfillment, the definitive “yes” to all God’s promises. “For however many are the promises of God,” he wrote, “their Yes is in him.” And Jesus’ yes, he continues, is the source of our own. “The Amen from us also goes through him to God for glory.” God is the one, he asserts, “who gives us security with you in Christ” and “anointed us,” and “put his seal upon us” and “given the Spirit in our hearts.” God is faithful, God fulfills his promises, and our response to God is to reciprocate that fidelity but maintaining our fidelity to his covenants and imitating his yes. Jesus would say in the Sermon on the Mount, “Let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes,’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No.’ Anything more is from the evil one” (Mt 5:37). St. James himself would echo it: “But above all, my brothers, do not swear, either by heaven or by earth or with any other oath, but let your ‘Yes’ mean ‘Yes’ and your ‘No’ mean ‘No,’ that you may not incur condemnation” (James 5:12). As Christians we are not supposed to vacillate. Christ, Paul, James all want to help us imitate God’s fidelity, and when we say yes to God to persevere in it.
- Jesus describes for us in today’s Gospel how he wishes for us to make our life an Amen to God. He wants us to live up to our vocation and commitment to be the Salt of the Earth and the Light of the World. What are we saying yes to in responding to these vocations?
- In calling us to be the Salt of the Earth, Jesus summons us to a three-fold fidelity.
- The first is as a preservative. Salt was used to preserve meat or fish from rotting. There was obviously no electricity and therefore refrigeration in the ancient world. If any fish or meat was going to last in the sweltering Middle Eastern climate, it needed to be salted. The salt was different than the meat or the fish, pointing to the fact that as Christians we’re supposed to be distinct from the world, in it but not of it. There was something more. There was an ancient saying that the animal and fish that were being preserved were already dead; salt would serve almost as a life-preserver, something that would keep the meat or fish filets from like likewise dying. It almost had a sense of the resurrection, giving them life whereas they, like the fish or animals from which they came, should be dead. All of this points to the fact that Jesus calls us to be his instrument to prevent the earth from going to corruption, from dying. We’re supposed to keep the world and others good. We all know that there are certain people who when they walk into a room keep others on their best behavior, not because others are afraid of them, but because they lift others to a higher standard by the way they themselves live. Jesus wants us to be like that person. Does our presence cause others to change behavior, to police their language, to speak more about faith, to find opportunities to serve others? Or are we inert or someone who by our thoughts, words and actions induce others toward worse conduct?
- The second purpose is to start a fire. Like still happens in some parts of the developing world today, at Jesus’ time, people would take animal dung, mix it with a lot of salt and then light it on fire. The dung alone couldn’t be ignited, but when it was mixed with salt, the salt would be able to be lit and then would gradually heat the dung, which kept heat for a really long time. Salt was the ancient equivalent of starter wood or lighter fluid for a barbecue. In calling us to be the Salt of the Earth in this way, Jesus is reminding us of two parts of our mission. First, we see in this use of salt that salt can redeem almost anything, even turning excrement into something good and useful. As Salt of the Earth we’re called to be God’s instrument for bringing good out of the evil we encounter, to help even those who were given over to evil to start producing something good. Secondly, salt is supposed to be a fire-starter. We are supposed to easily lit and capable of heating up others. Thus it is totally incompatible for us to be waiting for someone else to light a fire under us. We’re supposed to be the starter wood, the lighter fluid. We’re called to light the world ablaze. Do we by our presence inflame with love for God and others?
- The third and final function of salt at Jesus’ time is what we’ve maintained today, to give flavor to the food we consume. A little bit of salt as we know can influence a whole meal. This points to the fact that we, as salt of the earth, are called to give flavor so that others can “taste and see the goodness of the Lord,” we’re supposed to bring joy. So many in the world think that to enjoy themselves, there has to be a frat house atmosphere, where there’s plenty of booze, drugs, dim lights, lots of willing members of the opposite sex and other types of behavior that leads people to hangovers, methodone treatments, STDs and other regrettable and preventable consequences. Jesus calls us to show what real joy in life is, to be people who are happy, who are truly blessed by living together with Jesus as the cause of our joy. We come here to Jesus who says to us each time, “I have come so that my joy may be in you and your joy may be complete!.” And we’re called to bring that joy to the world.
- Jesus calls us not to let our saltiness become insipid but to remain faithful to preventing our faith and others’ from being corrupted, to starting the fire of faith, and to bringing joy to the world.
- In calling us to be the Light of the Word, Jesus is similarly summoning us to do other functions.
- The first is to illumine. Jesus says in St. John’s Gospel, “The man who follows me will have the light of life.” Jesus himself is the light of the world and he calls us to reflect his light; the only way we can do that is to follow him. It’s not enough just to know him and his teachings. We need to follow him, to walk as he walked, to love as he loved, to care as he cares, to do as he has done. The way we give off light for others is by following Christ so that they can follow us along the path of light on which Christ himself is guiding us. We Christians are supposed to be like indicator lights on an airport runaway so that the people of the world in the midst of a ferocious storm at night don’t crash but can land safely on the airstrip of heaven. Jesus wants us to radiate what he teaches us about how to live well, how to love well, how to die well so as to live for other, to others, to enflesh his teaching to such a degree that others see the light of his way of life shining from within us almost without our even trying. Jesus tells us in the Gospel that the way we give off his light is through deeds of genuine Christian love that leads others, in seeing them, to glorify God.
- The second thing like does is to warm. We are supposed to live and love with a particular Christ-like warmth, to make others’ hearts burn. Christian love is itself a form of light that opens people up to the exodus from darkness and fuller immersion into Christ’s light as children of the light. In an anti-intellectual age, this warmth is so key.
- Jesus tells us that we’re not supposed to hide our light under a bushel basket but to set it on a stand to give light to the entire house. Similarly, we’re supposed to be humbly proud of Christ’s teaching and absolutely committed faithfully to passing on the Gospel not just in the light of words but in the warmth of loving service.
- Our Amen always involves this salt and this luminescence. We’re summoned by the Lord to preserve people’s yes and prevent it from devolving into no’s; to catalyze the yes of faith by our own yeses; to show that the yes, although hard at times, leads to joy; to learn and teach our faith better so that our and other’s yeses can be more secure; and to encourage others toward saying yes by the love we have for them and put into our own.
- Every morning we have a chance to reiterate our yes to God in the Amen of the Mass — the Amen to the prayers we make to him with faith, the grateful Amen we make to the liturgy of the Word, committing ourselves to build on the rock of what Jesus says, our Amen to receiving him in Holy Communion, as he seeks from the inside to make us the salt and light the world needs.
The readings for today’s Mass were:
Reading 1 2 COR 1:18-22
Brothers and sisters:
As God is faithful, our word to you is not “yes” and “no.”
For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was proclaimed to you by us,
Silvanus and Timothy and me,
was not “yes” and “no,” but “yes” has been in him.
For however many are the promises of God, their Yes is in him;
therefore, the Amen from us also goes through him to God for glory.
But the one who gives us security with you in Christ
and who anointed us is God;
he has also put his seal upon us
and given the Spirit in our hearts as a first installment.
Responsorial Psalm PS 119:129, 130, 131, 132, 133, 135
R. (135a) Lord, let your face shine on me.
Wonderful are your decrees;
therefore I observe them.
R. Lord, let your face shine on me.
The revelation of your words sheds light,
gives understanding to the simple.
R. Lord, let your face shine on me.
I gasp with open mouth
in my yearning for your commands.
R. Lord, let your face shine on me.
Turn to me in pity
as you turn to those who love your name.
R. Lord, let your face shine on me.
Steady my footsteps according to your promise,
and let no iniquity rule over me.
R. Lord, let your face shine on me.
Let your countenance shine upon your servant,
and teach me your statutes.
R. Lord, let your face shine on me.
Alleluia MT 5:16
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Let your light shine before others
that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father.
R. Alleluia, alleluia.
Gospel MT 5:13-16
Jesus said to his disciples:
“You are the salt of the earth.
But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned?
It is no longer good for anything
but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.
You are the light of the world.
A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden.
Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket;
it is set on a lampstand,
where it gives light to all in the house.
Just so, your light must shine before others,
that they may see your good deeds
and glorify your heavenly Father.”
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